Etheridge tours food banks

I hope he is also touting how wasteful this bill and the numerous other shortcomings of this bill, which Bush was point on to veto.

The title “Farm Bill Hold Benefits for NC,” implicates that this bill essentially benefits North Carolina and its taxpaying citizens, but after closer review of the actual bill (H.R. 2419) there are many points that, to contrary, hurt North Carolina and the United States in general. At this point our CEO is acting with professional and honor as President currently plans to veto this proposed bill. The original bill was passed in 2002, since then key crop prices (will define later) have increased by 281% and total farm income has increased two fold. Sounds like they really really need help doesn’t it. The current bill pushes to increase subsidizes even higher, which will further distort food prices and continue to support millionaire farmers. The new proposal, which is intended to alleviate farmer poverty, will inflate the market value of commercial farms, which currently enjoy incomes of $200,000 and annual profit margins of $2,000,000. The method of ballooning these commercial farms is found in the subsidizes themselves as 90% of the subsidizes go for just FIVE crops (wheat, corn, cotton, soybean, and rice.) and leaves only 10% of subsidizes for all farmers that produce other crops including beef and poultry. In order to be eligible for these subsidizes farmers must over produce these FIVE crops, leading to an increased supply, which artificially raises commodity prices; therefore, creating hardships on the small farmers across North Carolina. The notion of the large conglomerate commercial farm is created within the language of the bill, as they are the only ones that have the capital margin to be able to withstand the hardship of price gouging.

Aside from what I have listed above, here are seven more aspects of the bill that are flawed complements of the Heritage Foundation.

The Farm Bill's Seven Principal Flaws
In its current form, the farm bill is unacceptable and deserves a veto for at least seven overriding reasons. Specifically, it:

Continues to subsidize millionaires. Currently, all full-time farmers may be eligible for farm subsidies regardless of income (part-time farmers must earn less than $2.5 million annually). President Bush reasonably proposed limiting farm subsidies to those who earn less than $200,000 a year.

Rather than follow that commonsense approach, the conference agreement reportedly rejects all farmer income tests for the countercyclical and marketing loan subsidy programs and includes only a weak net farm income cap for direct payments ($750,000 for single farmers and $1.5 million for married farmers after all business deductions). Direct payments would also be restricted to singles with non-farm incomes under $500,000 ($1 million for married couples).

That is not reform. Farmers with incomes in the millions of dollars would still be eligible for permanent subsidies. Farm subsidies would remain America's largest corporate welfare program: Most subsidies would continue to go to large agribusinesses. President Bush is right to insist that farmers earning more than $200,000 per year no longer be eligible for subsidies.

Eliminates key payment limits. Currently, farmers face limits of $180,000 apiece in annual commodity payments ($360,000 for those who work on multiple farms and double for married couples). This has created an industry of lawyers who exploit the payment limits' large loopholes. Rather than close the loopholes, the conference agreement reportedly eliminates the payment limits. Specifically, the $75,000 limit for the marketing loan program, which has been subject to the most abuse, would be repealed.

One seemingly positive portion of the farm bill would eliminate the commodity certificates that traditionally have been used to circumvent marketing loan payment limits, but with those limits now gone, farmers would no longer need to use commodity certificates anyway. The conference agreement would wisely eliminate the "three-entity rule" that allows farmers to collect up to $360,000 each year if they work on three or more farms; but, again, with no limit on marketing loan payments, farmers could collect larger subsidies than ever.

The Senate rejected a commonsense proposal by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) to limit farm subsidies to $250,000 per farm.[4] In no other profession can employees expect hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in both good years and bad. President Bush should insist that such large farm payments are unacceptable for a nation with expensive defense, education, health care, and homeland security priorities.

Increases spending with gimmicks. Congress's Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rule requires that entitlement and tax legislation remain deficit-neutral over 10 years. Yet the conference agreement reportedly increases spending by $10 billion over the next decade--plus as much as $10 billion more in gimmicks.

This is no surprise, as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) identified numerous gimmicks in the original House and Senate bills, such as shifting costs outside the 10-year window and unrealistically assuming that new nutrition and disaster aid provisions will suddenly be eliminated after five years to save money.[5] In addition, conferees violate PAYGO by using the farm spending baseline from 2007, which allows for more spending, rather than 2008.

President Bush proposed a farm bill that would limit spending increases to $5.5 billion and include spending offsets that do not raise taxes. Given record farm incomes and the already bloated federal agriculture budget, even the President's proposal is overly generous. Every dollar of increased farm subsidies must come from (1) other programs such as Social Security, defense, or education; (2) higher taxes; and/or (3) increased debt for future generations. President Bush should block any attempt to burden current and future taxpayers with the costs of subsidizing wealthy farmers.

Increases subsidy rates. Despite sky-high crop prices, the conference agreement reportedly raises subsidy rates for more than a dozen crops under the countercyclical and/or marketing loan programs. These programs disburse subsidies whenever crop prices dip below the target prices set in the law. Raising those target prices means that any drop in crop prices would trigger the payment of subsidies sooner and cost taxpayers far more than under current law. The bill also adds four new crops (dry peas, lentils, small chickpeas, and large chickpeas) to the countercyclical program. These are stealth spending increases, because they do not show up in the CBO cost estimate of the bill.[6] They could also bring a challenge from the World Trade Organization for distorting global trade, potentially leading to retaliation from foreign trading partners that would deplete American exports.

Continues direct payments regardless of crop price. No matter how high corn prices soar, the direct payment program would force taxpayers to send $2 billion in direct payments to corn farmers every year. Wheat farmers would receive $1 billion in annual direct payments, and farmers of other crops would receive a combined $2 billion in annual direct payments. These payments are not based on farmer incomes, crop prices, or any standard of need. Farmers are not even required to grow the listed crop to get a subsidy; the law requires only that they have grown it at some point in the past. There is simply no rationale for these subsidies. Yet the Senate rejected an amendment by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) that would have redirected these payments into conservation, nutrition, and deficit reduction.[7] Although prices of the subsidized crops have more than doubled since the last farm bill, the conference agreement reportedly reduces direct payments by just 2 percent, which would then be restored in the final year to preserve the bloated spending baseline. If farm subsidies are designed to compensate farmers for low incomes caused by low crop prices, then continuing to pay more than $5 billion annually to farmers regardless of crop price is an improper use of taxpayer dollars.

Creates a new, permanent disaster aid program. The conference agreement reportedly spends an additional $3.8 billion over five years to create a permanent farm disaster aid program.[8] Farmers already receive approximately $20 billion in annual commodity and conservation subsidies, plus an additional $3 billion in crop insurance subsidies. Under this proposal, many farmers who suffer crop losses would automatically collect crop insurance payments and disaster payments, essentially double-dipping. This new pot of money would encourage Congress to declare "emergencies" regularly in order to release these funds. Now is it not the time to increase subsidies further.

Fails to modernize farm policy for the 21st century. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced farm subsidies in the 1930s, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace called them "a temporary solution to deal with an emergency."[9] That emergency was the collapsing farm incomes that afflicted the 25 percent of the population living on farms. Today, farmers account for just 1 percent of the population, and farm household incomes and net worth are well above the national average, making the original poverty justification obsolete. In the 21st century, the challenge for farmers is not persistent poverty, but year-to-year income fluctuations brought on by weather- and pest-induced crop unpredictability. The proper response to yearly income fluctuations is not a permanent, massive program of subsidies that farmers receive even in good years. Crop insurance and farmer savings accounts can smooth out the boom and bust years in ways that keep farmers closer to their healthy annual average incomes, all at minimal taxpayer cost. Canada and Australia have already implemented these types of programs.[10] Additionally, lawmakers must recognize that commodity subsidies distort the farm economy. Farm subsidies induce farmers to grow whatever the government will subsidize, not what consumers want. Stephen Houston, Jr., a Georgia cotton farmer, recently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "We're just playing a game. [Market] prices don't have anything to do with what we're doing. We're just looking at the government payments."[11] Farm policies also harm the environment by promoting overproduction and discouraging crop rotation, violate trade agreements, undercut African farmers, contribute to obesity by subsidizing unhealthy foods, and cost taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars every year.

The agriculture economy has been revolutionized over the past 75 years, and Americans deserve a modern farm bill that reflects today's farm economy. This farm bill clearly fails to meet that standard.