Offered for your consideration:
- Item: Susan Schwab, US Trade Representative suggest the US might be willing to make deeper cuts in ag subsidies.
- Item: House Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Bohner demand budget offsets for any emergency ag aid.
- Item: USDA Secretary Johanns endlessly repeats no farm bill extension and fairer (wider) distribution of loot are must have provisions of the next farm bill.
If they go Republican again, doesn't that suggest a majority of farmers, like your humble blogger, are ready for America's Peter Pan farmers to grow up and stand on their own two feet?
I think some will read it that way.
I hope.
2 comments:
John,
I forget exactly what year it was-maybe about 1998 when the Asian currency crisis crashed our grain market, USDA just automaticly doubled our AMPTI payments. That would have been the time to hold the line right then and there. Everybody knew what the saftey net was going into that event, but the government just dished it out again, just like Bush doubling the Congressional request for 20 Billion after 911 to 40 Billion. But if the true purpose of the doubling of the AMPTI payments was to stimuate the economy, what better way to do it than to give a farmer some cash? He will spend it quicker than any other segment.
Fair point. The idea of farmers as cash conduits to the economy doesn't say much about our worth as professionals. After all the best people to put money in circulation are the desperately poor or the absolutely clueless. They will spend every cent at the retail level.
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