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Should commodity payments to farmers be capped?
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Iowa’s federal politicians tell us that capping farm payments is a good first step toward closing an abused loophole that has been open too long.
But actually closing that loophole is another matter, especially with a divided government in Washington. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, last week introduced an effort to impose hard caps on farm payments of $50,000 on commodity benefits. The proposal was met with a mixed reaction.
Specifically, Grassley’s idea is to cap farm payments above $50,000 (marketing loan payments would be different) because the farm payment system has become too abused by large farms that are taking up too much of the federal payout. He says the bill would “make the system more reasonable.”
The issue is separate from direct payments. The Senate-passed bill last year already ended that practice, but because the House wouldn’t accept the Senate version of the bill and instead simply passed a nine-month extension, direct payments have continued. Grassley said this week the Senate will keep trying to end direct payments.
Do you think commodity payments to farmers should be capped?
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Moot point. Farmers and their organizations have been asking for an end to direct payments and Congress, on the verge of ending such, extends it for another year. Cap or no cap, those payments should end soon!
A much better question would concern itself with Congressional leaders who are irresponsible with the taxpayers money; Should we cap their terms so they’re not “buying” votes?
As framed here, by Congress and in The Gazette today, this misses the point by a long shot, as does Curt’s comment. All commodity subsidies are the government writing checks for deregulated “free” market failures, which, as abundant data shows, has usually been the case due to the lack of price responsiveness on both supply and demand sides. All that means is that consumers don’t eat 4, 5, 6 meals when corn and wheat prices are low, nor do farmers stop planting the whole farm, for obvious reasons, etc. As by far the largest exporter, Congress has chosen for the US to lose money below fair trade standards and full costs, the opposite of OPEC. It’s to subsidize US & foreign corporate buyers who (with Curt here) “buy” votes. For milk, the store price would be $14.26 compared to 1950 if it went up like Congress’ salary. To cut subsidies while market prices are high, without a return to a business oriented approach (balance supply and demand and price with floors, ceilings, reserves, reductions as needed), therefore, misses it all. Grassley & friends like Braley therefore totally ignore the real abusers who convinced Congress to lose money on exports so they could secretly benefit, all while massively reducing what farmers get, but then blaming farmers victims for the very partial compensations. It’s simply not a discussion based upon what has happened in the real world on a massive scale. It’s also based upon the falsehood that the top 10% of subsidy recipients are are huge. No, it takes about 203 acres of corn and soybeans to hit that mark, while the bottom 80% mark is only 7% of that 200 acres, (50% mark is 3%, etc.). It’s another amazing fake discussion, to be put in the file alongside of other falsehoods like the dairy cliff, farmer clout, and claims that farm prices have hit “record” levels. Not even close, as abundant data proves.