Waste, Fraud and Abuse

       The federal government spends more than $20 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses. About 39 percent of the nation's 2.1 million farms receive subsidies, with the lion's share of the handouts going to the largest producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. (823, 334 farms).  In plain language that means that we spend $2,024 per month, per farm, giving money to farmers who are working and earning due to price supports on many crops.

        Contrary to what one might expect and what conventional lore suggests, owners of large farms, with incomes quite high relative to non-farmers, receive most of these benefits. Consumers and taxpayers, meanwhile, bear the cost of farm programs through increased taxes and higher food prices. To make matters worse, these costly programs rarely achieve their goals. According to salary data for farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers from May 2016, the average salary is $75,790 a year.  Agricultural special interests and the agriculture committees frequently try to paint a picture of the struggling family farmer trying to make ends meet. Myth!One of these “farmers” lives in a beachside mansion on Osprey Island, Fla., worth $7.8 million. He’s received a payment every year between 1995 and 2017, totaling $839,000.

       The reality? “Family farm” is not a synonym for “small farm.” In 2015, 90 percent of million-dollar farms were family farms. Almost of all the commodity payments and crop insurance indemnities are going to millionaires and multimillionaires as measured by farm household net worth. The median farm household wealth for all farms was $897,000, which is nine times greater than the median household wealth for all U.S. households! In truth, in 2015, half went to households with incomes over $146,126!

        Here in Florida, “we” (Fed and State policies) subsidize the sugar barons south of Okeechobee whose fertilizer enriched runoff waters are, in times of lots of rain (you know like every summer?) pumped back into the lake. Ask the residents of the east coast and the St. Lucie/Indian River estuaries how they like the floating islands of green crud these waste waters nourish. To what end?

        In an article entitled “The U.S. spends $4 billion a year subsidizing ‘Stalinist-style’ domestic sugar production,” we see the following data: In the United States, fewer than 4,500 farm businesses produce sugar. Yet they cost taxpayers up to $4 billion a year in subsidies. The U.S. sugar program is a Stalinist-style supply control initiative that limits imports through quotas and domestic production through what are called marketing allotments. This strategy substantially increases U.S. prices — on average U.S. sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices (bold and italics are mine) — ensuring domestic sugar production is artificially higher, crowding out other productive uses of irrigable farmland. This also in a ripple effect, driving up the cost of everything made in America with cane sugar. This is also why some confectioners have moved production offshore, cutting US jobs in the process. Of course, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and now, one opines, newly elected Rick Scott, are so deep in the pockets of “Big Sugar” that they no longer, if ever they did, see the issue as it is.

        On the other hand, we bitch about providing basic food support to persons, 44% of whom, nationally, are children. The maximum gross monthly income for Food stamp eligibility is 130 percent of the federal poverty level, and the maximum net monthly income is 100 percent of the federal poverty level. For instance, if your household only consists of one person, then the gross monthly income to be eligible for SNAP is $1,287 (net $990). SNAP benefits cost $70.9 billion in fiscal year 2016 and supplied roughly 44.2 million Americans (14% of the population) with a monthly average of $125.51 per person in food assistance.

        So, let’s recap, if I’m one of the “lucky” (believe me, luck really isn’t a factor) farmers drawing the “average” farm $75k annual income, I can still count on a slice of that $20 billion pie. But if I am a non-farmer, earning even $100 annually in excess of $27,180 (family of four) even with two adults at minimum wage, tough! Not even food stamps.

       And by the way, did I forget to mention that 32 members of Congress received farm subsidies last year, including three members of the House Agriculture Committee. The farm owned in part by Committee member, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., received at least $5.3 million in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2016. LaMalfa is a member of the House Agriculture Committee,Can you say "conflict of interest?"