Farmers Harvest Your Money

The Washington Post takes a closer look at welfare for farmers (and faux-farmers):

Heart surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell owns a piece of land that hasn't produced crops in years. The federal government has paid him $490,709 in rice subsidies since 1996. Michael T. Sullivan's family, corn farmers, sold most of their crop last year above a government-set minimum price. He got $292,054 in federal agricultural payments anyway. ... Many American farmers have learned to speculate on foodstuff markets, successfully timing the sale of their crops to coincide with high prices. Yet under the misleadingly named loan deficiency payment (LDP) scheme, the Michael Sullivans of the world can claim federal money as long as the market price dips below a government-set minimum price after they harvest their crop. Intended to benefit farmers hitting hard times, the LDP program handed out $3.8 billion more last year than it needed to guarantee its minimum price. ...

Lots of American entrepreneurs take risks every year and don't expect a government safety net; why are American farmers, especially the larger planters who expertly extract government farm entitlements, any more deserving?

Good question.

In an earlier article, the Post noted that

Most of the money goes to real farmers who grow crops on their land, but they are under no obligation to grow the crop being subsidized. They can switch to a different crop or raise cattle or even grow a stand of timber — and still get the government payments. The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards.

That piece features this quote from one of those money-grubbing, taxpayer-robbing assholes beneficiaries, asphalt contractor Donald Matthews:

"I don't agree with the government's policy. They give all of this money to landowners who don't even farm, while real farmers can't afford to get started. It's wrong."

But, after thinking it over, he decided to keep the money anyway. He's not even gaming the system, really, as the Post points out:

Another thick layer of irony in all of this is that these programs aren't poorly managed. They operate just as Congress passed them.

Read it all.

Comments

[Adam W.]

Rogier, please. While I agree with you (the farm program is probably the second gov. program I'd eliminte (after the Drug War), please read the whole quote about Matthews-he's not an asshole. As follows:

"I was informed by Mr. Petty that there was a 'rice base' and I was entitled. I said, 'What do you mean I'm entitled? I'm not going to farm rice.' "

But nine of Matthews's acres are classified as agricultural land, for which he has received more than $5,000, records show.

Matthews said he originally was not going to take the money. But he said Petty told him that it would just go to other landowners. "I thought, heck, why should I do that? I wasn't going to give it to somebody else to put in their pocket." Instead, he uses the money to fund scholarships at the county fair and two local high schools, he said.

"Still, I get money I don't think I'm entitled to," he said."

If it'd just go to someone else, why shouldn't he at least put it toward a good cause?