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Spending Big at the Ag Department
Last weekend I wrote about legislation sponsored by House Republican “Buck” McKeon (R.Ca) who is the head of the powerful Armed Services Committee. Buck had proposed a spending plan for the military that maintains spending on guns and ammo at the highest level in the nation's history. The proposal's spending levels are above those set by congress in last year’s Budget Control Act. I gave the Republicans gas for coming up with such a ludicrous plan. Many readers read concluded that I was just shilling for the Democrats. In an effort at that “fair and balanced” thing, l will hack up a Democratic proposal on spending this weekend.
Senate Democrat, Debbie Stabenow (MI), head of the powerful Agricultural Committee, has come forward with her plan for spending by the US Agricultural Department (USDA). The legislation (S.3240) would put spending by the good old USAD at $969 billion over the next nine years.
A budget hasn't been approved in 1,100 days, so it’s difficult to compare the proposed spending with what has happened the past few years at the USDA. The last time a budget was seriously considered, the 2013-22 spending was $997b. So it looks like cuts of $23b have been proposed this time around. But that is just for show. The bill has supplementary provisions for “credit assistance,” “education,” and “trade promotion”. The add ons come to an extra $28B over the next decade, so what has been offered up by Senator Stabenow has no cuts at all.
It’s not that I want to cut the USDA budget to the bone. After all, they are doing such a good job of protecting the country’s food supply, right? Well, actually, they aren’t doing so well at that. The CDC spells it out:
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48 million folks got sick from what they ate last year, 128k ended up in the hospital, 3,000 ended up in the morgue. This holiday weekend some 400k folks will be up puking their guts out, 3,000 will end up in a hospital, and 25 folks won’t make it till Tuesday. So if you’re planning a BBQ to celebrate Memorial Day, watch out for the rancid lamb, the salmonella salad, and the Norovirus burgers.
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The real job at the USDA is protecting the farmers. You would think that the unending recession would put those hard working folks in the fields in distress. Actually that is not the case. Farmers have been doing better than the bankers the past four years. Total revenues are up 15%%, net income has risen by 8% ($92b). (link)
The real estate crisis has crushed many Americans, but not the farmers. Arable land is at the highest value in history. Prices were up 20% in both 2010 and 2012. In the past ten-years, farm land values have more than doubled:
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Senator Stabenow is probably doing what she’s supposed to be doing. As the head of the Senate’s Ag Committee she’s supposed to be sucking up taxpayer money and seeing that it’s spent on the farmers she’s supposed to represent. Her home state, Michigan, is a modest player in agriculture. It’s ranked 22th, but farming is still a success story in the “Mitten.”
In Michigan, 41% of all farmers are getting checks from the USDA. Of those farmers on the dole, the top 10% are getting 71% of the handouts. (Link) No doubt this has helped the good Senator’s fund raising efforts; she’s been around for twelve years.
It being an election year, we will have more than the usual amount of political speeches this Memorial Day. Republicans and Democrats will be out there pushing the “debt/deficit” hot buttons. They will be selling a message of austerity and a return to some level of sanity with deficits. But when you look at what the Reds and Blues actually do when they are back in D.C. drafting legislation, you'll see that that both sides of the aisle are proposing spending on their pet projects. Neither side has any interest in cutting spending. What they will be saying on the stump this weekend will sound nice, but actually they are all lying.
Note:
Don’t get too riled up about the spending bills from Buck or Diane. There is not a chance in hell that any of this will pass. We will go another 400 days without a budget. Someday we will pay a price for this.
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With half of American families now getting some kind of government aide and 15 trilion of debt it really dont matter who now is going to promise what to who we are in the final grasp of depresion so the promised slips of worthless paper will be just that worthless paper along with worthless politicians and their lackeys sucking the last remains out of our ecenomy, it is time to start practicing CYA.
Handy little tool for checking salary & bonus pay (yes, bonus) at the Ag Dept...
http://php.app.com/fed_employees11/search.php
Enjoy ;-)
Regulatory capture has ocurred at all levels of government. This is but a single example. It matters not who the regulator is. They all work for their lobbies. Such is the regulatory dilemma. Something the 99% should learn about.
Also, CRP has got to go. And it will go.
Starve the FDA!
Seriously, the size of the government has become unmanageable.
What are we to do, open a regulatory agency to monitor the regulators? Maybe a Department of Watchdog Agencies over Regulatory Agencies.
We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html
...Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.
It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills? ...
Bruce - USDA has job of protecting food supply; but consumers also have a job to protect themselves, their family, and others from improper food storage, handling, and preparation. Picnic potato salad gone bad!
Food handlers and servers (restaurants) also have a job to protect their customers from unsanitary and improper food storage, handling, and preparation.
Does the CDC 2011 Estimates for Illness, Hospitalizations, and Deaths include only cases directly related to USDA inspection and enforcement functions, or does it include all cases, including cases where the consumer or restaurants are negligent or at fault?
I gave you a +1 for bringing up an important point, but some on here have pointed out how derelect our government's been in inspecting cattle for Mad Cow Disease... practically none, and FAR below the standards in other developed nations. They never said or did anything about pink slime until others brought it to the nation's attention and only responded after public outrage.
Others have linked to stories of shutting down organic "farm to fork" picnics, kids lemonade stands etc.
Typical stupidity from government bureaucracies allowed to grow too large and become too powerful.
Yes, consider Asian food markets in the US. Many of them seem to operate with no refrigeration and half dead or half decayed meat and fish flopping around. Yet Chinese live longer than anyone else in my state by a large margin.
That's probably because they're feeding that crap to you while they eat the safe stuff that round eyes won't even touch.
And always avoid eating the backyard bar-b-Q where the drunks are running the grill with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other. Just take a bag of popcorn and watch the show.
Went to one of those last night...the ribs were superb.
Notice to all ZH-ers: If you read this post, you MUST wash your hands before retunring to the home page.
Farmers pay taxes...unlike Wall Street! And unlike Wall Street "they don't cost us a trillion dollars when they need a bailout." That would be "just a week's worth of failure" i might add. Sorry but this is chump change going to farmers. I'm sorry Bruce that you're so jealous of all those cow pokes out there making money of course! But really...i'm not. In fact you and your "Swiss citizenship" can friggin' DIE for all i care. I don't want your sports teams, i don't want your politicians, i don't want your deceit, i don't want your hatred for the USA, i don't want your bankruptcies and corruption, i don't want your failure PERIOD. For a farmer "failure is not an option." When he saves...he saves food. I'm not sorry if you have to pay for that food now. In fact i am grateful for it! I did take note "the Mayor of New York City is engaged in quite the land grab." Go ahead! "Take those billions in criminal gains while sticking the American people with trillions in your losses." Sure doesn't seem "fair and balanced" tho...now go out there and convince Farmer John i'm wrong in anything i'm saying here! Indeed ANYTHING i've said here!
My advice ... spend less time in the sun.
Hypocritical reasoning working out for you? The USDA spending $ 1 trillion USD over a three year period is NOT chump change.
The farm subsidies DWARF the oil company subsidies by a 10:1 ratio. I am all for eliminating the oil company subsidies lock, stock and barrel.
We could limit the farm subsidies to small farmers ONLY and not harm anything.
As I pointed out last week, we have a SPENDING problem in Washington, DC. Until we fire up the proverbial chainsaws and start some TRIAGE TRIMMING of the federal government, we are not going to solve anything.
Bruce, we need Farmer John (average age 58) but we don't need Executive Vice Presidents of Crop Circles and Rotation. You've sieved out some of the boll weevils in the mix. Anything else to help people understand where the crony capitalism is happening would be a plus.
barliman
Wouldn't oil company subsidies include most of the defense/war department, operations in Iraq, etc. We're always being told we need multiple fleets to protect oil supplies. That's a lot more than ag subsidies.
Well, Bruce thinks I am a Utopian idealist. I'm not.
I am more of a strict constructionist ... of the English language. When I speak of subsidies in the government sense, I am referring to the specific act of interfering in a capitalist enterprise to goal seek a political outcome designated to be specifically desirous by some idiot(s).
My approach to government reform can be found at this link:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/one-half-simpson-bowles-goes-there-krugman-borders-hysteria#comment-2432090
With regard to the American military's worldwide presence, anyone who finds it particularly loathsome should go find a quiet little out of the way place that is left to its own devices.
Somalia fits the bill pretty well.
Go spend six months in Somalia and come back with your take on how the world functions beyond the reach of the American military. By the way, in the same thread link, I touch on getting the country to address spending priorities and Defense spending.
(Note: Any conspiracy monkeys looking to yammer about false flags, imperialism, militarism, what have you - I will not engage in your mindless rants or suffer you gladly. Might has been deciding how things work since the happy days when sabre tooth tigers were crapping out human remains. If you have a problem with that fact, you have not passed the emotional age of four and need to obtain counseling [not likely to help] or go out past the point where civilization ends. You will know you are getting close when the guys at the "tollbooth" are sitting around an open fire at the edge of the road with AK-47's to insure compliance with people stopping to pay the toll.)
Absent having been out in the parts of the world where civilization as you know it does not exist (but cell phone service is still fair ... think about that fact), it is pointless to have a discussion regarding the defense/war department with people who have spent their lives under its protection.
No, I am not interested in the real/imagined badass places you have been. No, I am not channeing Jack Nicholson from "A Few Good Men". I am trying to get people to face up to the reality that the American military global presence is a daily fact of life and virtually no one disparaging it has:
Would I like to see American military spending reduced? Yes
Do I think we have wasted the precious lives of our military people for fruitless missions and goals? Yes
Is it a monstrous evil foisted upon the world? No. I have been out past its reach - going the 'wrong way' with regard to the guys at the "tollbooth".
We need to address a host of problems facing this country - including a rational discussion on how much of our national treasure we are willing to spend to make life easier for the rest of the world.
barliman
Since the War Department uses HALF of all the oil we burn here in Amurika, it's really not an oil subsidy, it's DEFENSE SPENDING!
Bruce your no shill for the dem or repub; your one of those crazy independent or possible libertarian thinker.
USDA also allows Monsanto products in the US when Europe won't allow them in because they have been proven hazardous to human health.
How about state rather than Federal departments. Or governance by departments that are representative of populations that were proportianate to the number of people governed by States at the time of the signing of the Constitution.
In other words exactly opposite of Federal and Global power structures. Invert the Pyramid, live long and prosper.
French ban of Monsanto GM maize rejected by EU
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/22/french-ban-gm-maize-rejected
Buy off EU food safety group? Check.
if corporate farmers actually grew food...
They grow lots of it. It's just shitty.
But not real shit. That would actually improve the crud they churn out.
It's not just corporates, although they certainly do take advantage of it. Plenty of independents take CRP money too.
USDA is doing a splendid job of kicking over little girls' lemonade stands and putting organic growers out of business.
They simply don't have the time or resources to look for foodborne pathogens, or toxic chimical spew, or melamine substitution in Chinese imports.
"... shilling for Dem's?"
Not this reader.
You are a trader.
Taking the money my son yet has to make.
You are a trader.
You wish none of your money helps the world.
You are a trader.
You write for our sympathy.
You’ll forget it's my money.
You are a trader.
[ arrrg]
Capt. Ray been hitting the Grog again...
[ arrrg]
And you are a pirate?
Sorry, we already have one of those.
As a vers libre poet ... you don't have my sympathy.
barliman
WTF are you talking about?
...?
The only way to get Congress to their jobs is:
If a budget is not signed for all 13 appropriation bills by 30 Sep, neither Congress (House and Senate) or President and all political appointees cannot get paid and no fundraising can occur until the budgets are passed.
This is the only way to get this machine to work again.
That would carry a lot more weight if any of these cocksuckers had to make a living off from their salary instead of the favors they accept on our behalf.
I wonder how many votes your proposed legislation will pass by. I'm guessing the only time this gets fixed is when the big red reset button gets hit.
Only if the red reset button is attached to the trigger of a guillotine.
Hillary gave that away to the Russians who took it as an insult.
The global spending party to end all global spending parties.
Humans suck.
Did you really expect better from slightly more intelligent chimpanzees?
On an related note, the CDC really needs to learn about significant figures.
> "Humans suck."
No shit - look at Debbie Stabenow's lips... they were made for sucking.
Last time I saw a set of lips like that, Alan Greenspan was flapping 'em. Time before that, they had a hook in 'em.