Nearly 28,000 Farmers Got USDA Payments for 32 Straight Years, Worth $19 Billion Total
Talk about a ‘welfare’ program.
Nearly 28,000 Farmers Got USDA Payments for 32 Straight Years, Worth $19 Billion Total
Almost 28,000 U.S. farmers received taxpayer-funded federal farm subsidies or disaster relief payments for 32 straight years, according to a new EWG analysis of data from the Department of Agriculture. These recipients took in a total of more than $19 billion.
EWG’s new analysis comes as Congress seeks to impose new work requirements on parents with young children and older Americans who receive anti-hunger assistance. The House failed to pass a new farm bill last month, but congressional leaders have pledged to try again.
USDA data show that between 1985 and 2016, a total of 27,930 recipients got payments every year, totaling at least $19.2 billion. The average payment for the 32-year period was $687,204. But the largest recipient, Marsh Farms of Sondheimer, La., received $11.3 million, and nine others receive at least $8 million each.
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Both Marsh Farms and the second-ranking recipient, Michael Brown and Sons, are represented in Congress by Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La., a member of the House Committee on Agriculture. Last month Abraham said the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – or SNAP, better known as food stamps – should be an “on-ramp to success, not a lifestyle for work-capable adults.” Although he is a veterinarian, Abraham has personally received more than $440,000 in farm subsidies.
EWG also found that 245 of the 27,930 recipients currently reside in one of the nation's 50 largest cities. EWG previously reported that 17,836 of all subsidy recipients in 2015 and 2016 lived in these cities.
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If enacted, the House farm bill would have changed current law to require parents with young children and workers up to age 60 to prove every month that they worked at least 20 hours (or participated in a job training program), or they would lose their SNAP benefits.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said last month that these changes are needed to end “long-term dependency” that “has never been part of the American Dream.” Perdue, who has personally received nearly $300,000 in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2004, said the proposed SNAP restrictions would create an “opportunity to become self-sufficient.”
https://www.ewg.org/agmag/2018/05/nearly-28000-farmers-got-usda-payments...
Comments
Lemme guess
most of the payments were to NOT grow something.
Many members of congress own farms and they vote for their own
subsidies. The farm bill comes up every 5 years and people who don't need welfare get more of it and the ones who do need it get less. Over $13 billion was cut from the SNAP program during Obama's tenure. But the real damage to it came during the Clinton's presidency when he passed the republicans' wet dream of welfare reform.
For people who live in the states that require them to report on the hours they work, many are being kicked off them because states shut down their reporting sites every night from 7 pm to some time in the am for maintenance. One person is suing the state for doing that. Sorry for no link.
Congress has made it clear that unless you're doing something that society needs they don't want you to suck up money that could go to the rich. This is going to get much worse.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
what society needs
"unless you're doing something that society needs they don't want you to suck up money that could go to the rich"
How badly do we need food?
What society needs is a lot of local farmers who are secure in their investment and their work. We then get high employment, control over their own lives, fresher, better food in the markets, less toxic romaine, less likely to damage nature - because they live on that land and fish in its rivers. In a boom and bust field like farming, vulnerable to weather changes and market prices, there's a lot of risk (especially now), which is how megafarms make out: their economy of scale lets them tolerate some risk - they just lay off/not hire workers. But the megafarms are the ones giving us long-market-distance, pesticide-drenched monocultures of proprietary GMOs, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and species like Monarch butterflies. Ironically, it seems the megafarms get most of this largesse - the very "people" (sensu Romney) who need it least. I'd be glad to be wrong. And it's too tempting for smaller landholders to sell to developers, especially when family plots diffuse through generations. This program works best when it keeps and encourages the small farm. Ah, socialism.
But I picture a faux farmer in bibs and Carhart with $100 bills in his expensive wallet, who goes back to the executive office and tells "his" crew to work faster. "My boys work good, but ya gotta know how to talk to 'em". Then goes on tv about the virtue and values of the country folk,and runs for office.
$21,205.35 per farmer
per year.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Not when
a dozen or more are getting millions, it ain't!
What's the high?
What's the low? What's the mean?
Bill Gates walks Out of the room, the average income of That room DROPS. Same principle here.
Kinda.
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Milionaire developer
I knew a millionaire land developer who clearcut 300 acres of mature forest, and ran a few token cows on it to get the USDA payments. Then sold lots.