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<span class="" title="2013-06-04T21:12:01+00:00">June 4, 2013, <span>9:12 pm</span></span>
<h3 class="">Welfare for the Wealthy</h3>
<address class="">By <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mark-bittman/" class="" title="See all posts by MARK BITTMAN">MARK BITTMAN</a></address>
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<p>The critically important Farm Bill <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/welfare-for-the-wealthy/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130605&pagewanted=print#1">[1]</a>
is impenetrably arcane, yet as it worms its way through Congress,
Americans who care about justice, health or the environment can parse
enough of it to become outraged. </p><p>The legislation costs around
$100 billion annually, determining policies on matters that are
strikingly diverse. Because it affects foreign trade and aid,
agricultural and nutritional research, and much more, it has global
implications.</p><p>The Farm Bill finances food stamps (officially SNAP,
or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the subsidies that
allow industrial ag and monoculture — the “spray and pray” style of
farming — to maintain their grip on the food “system.”</p><p>The bill is
ostensibly revisited, refashioned and renewed every five years, but
this round, scheduled to be re-enacted last year, has been in discussion
since 2010, and a final bill is not in sight. Based on the current
course of Congress it seems there will be an extension this fall, as
there was in 2012. Extensions allow funding changes for individual
“titles,” as programs are sometimes called; last year’s extensions
didn’t do much damage, but this year’s threaten the well-being of tens
of millions of Americans.<br><br>I routinely talk to people who monitor
the Farm Bill, a task that’s practically a full-time job. One is David
Beckmann, president of <a href="http://www.bread.org/">Bread for the World</a>, a principled anti-hunger group. Another is Craig Cox, a senior vice president at the <a href="http://www.ewg.org/">Environmental Working Group</a>,
among the best NGOs on agricultural policy and just plain consumer
advice regarding the various plagues of industrial agriculture. </p><p>These
people and many others are devoted to feeding the hungry, protecting
the environment and boosting sensible agricultural policies, yet they
avoid the fatalism that causes some to throw up their hands. </p><p>The
current versions of the Farm Bill in the Senate (as usual, not as
horrible as the House) and the House (as usual, terrifying) could hardly
be more frustrating. The House is proposing <a href="http://www.justharvest.org/index.php/component/content/article/37-welfare-justice/226-stop-cuts-to-food-stamps">$20 billion in cuts</a>
to SNAP — equivalent, says Beckmann, to “almost half of all the
charitable food assistance that food banks and food charities provide to
people in need.” <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/welfare-for-the-wealthy/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130605&pagewanted=print#2">[2]</a> </p><p>Deficit
reduction is the sacred excuse for such cruelty, but the first could be
achieved without the second. Two of the most expensive programs are
food stamps, the cost of which has justifiably soared since the
beginning of the Great Recession <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/welfare-for-the-wealthy/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130605&pagewanted=print#3">[3]</a> , and direct subsidy payments. </p>
<p>This
pits the ability of poor people to eat — not well, but sort of enough —
against the production of agricultural commodities. That would be a
difficult choice if the subsidies were going to farmers who could be
crushed by failure, but in reality most direct payments go to those who
need them least. </p><p>Among them is Congressman Stephen Fincher,
Republican of Tennessee, who justifies SNAP cuts by quoting 2
Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this
command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”</p><p>Even if this
quote were not taken out of context — whoever wrote 2 Thessalonians was
chastising not the poor but those who’d stopped working in anticipation
of the second coming — Fincher ignores the fact that Congress is a
secular body that supposedly doesn’t base policy on an ancient religious
text that <a href="http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Inconsistencies_in_the_Bible">contradicts itself</a> more often than not. Not that one needs to break a sweat countering his “argument,” but 45 percent of food stamp recipients <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/SNAP/FILES/Participation/2011Characteristics.pdf">are children</a>, and in 2010, the U.S.D.A. reported that as many as 41 percent are <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/18/hannity-omits-the-food-stamp-facts-most-recipie/189991">working poor</a>. </p>
<p>This would be just another amusing/depressing example of an elected official ignoring a huge part of his constituency (about <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/04/05/some-15-of-u-s-receives-food-stamps/">one in seven</a>
Americans rely on food stamps, though it’s one in five in Tennessee,
the second highest rate in the South), were not Fincher himself a
hypocrite. </p><p>For the God-fearing Fincher is <a href="http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=47000&progcode=totalfarm&page=1">one of the largest recipients of U.S.D.A. farm subsidies in Tennessee history</a>;
he raked in $3.48 million in taxpayer cash from 1999 to 2012, $70,574
last year alone. The average SNAP recipient in Tennessee gets $132.20 in
food aid a month; Fincher received $193 a day. (You can eat pretty well
on that.) <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/welfare-for-the-wealthy/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130605&pagewanted=print#4">[4]</a> </p><p>Fincher is not alone in disgrace, <a href="http://www.ewg.org/release/members-congress-received-238k-farm-subsidies">even among his Congressional colleagues</a>,
but he makes a lovely poster boy for a policy that steals taxpayer
money from the poor and so-called middle class to pay the rich, while
propping up a form of agriculture that’s unsustainable and poisonous.</p><p>Knowing
that direct subsidy payments are under the gun, our clever and cynical
representatives are offering a bait-and-switch policy that will make
things worse, and largely replace subsidy payments with an enhanced form
of crop insurance — paid for by us, of course — which will further
reduce risks for commodity farmers. As Craig Cox explained, “The
proposed crop insurance would allow — no, encourage — big farmers to
plant corn on hillsides, in flood-threatened areas, even in
drought-stricken areas, with subsidized premiums and deductibles, and
see a big payout if” — should we say “when”? — “the crop fails or is
damaged.”</p><p>You should get such a deal on insurance: the premiums
and deductibles are subsidized and there’s no limit to what can be paid,
so bigger farms and bigger risks reap bigger rewards in the event of
failure, even if that was a failure of judgment. <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/welfare-for-the-wealthy/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130605&pagewanted=print#5">[5]</a> </p><p>Even without boosting the program, crop insurance payments came in at a whopping <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21578688-awful-farm-bill-faces-opposition-trough">$17 billion last year</a>.
That was unusually high because of the drought, but only a
climate-change denier believes that was the last drought we’re going to
see. And if you think any of this can be justified because it supports
the insurance industry and creates American jobs … well, no: most of the
subsidized insurance providers are based offshore.</p><p>We are so used
to welfare for the wealthy that most of us, sadly, shrug it off. But a
Farm Bill extension does give an opportunity to end direct subsidy
payments, rein in crop insurance, and protect the programs that are
critical to our national identity and benefit those who deserve it.</p><p>It’s
a simple solution, says Cox: “The legislators could decide not to
reauthorize direct payments and invest some of the savings in good
programs while still hitting budget reduction targets.” The
Congressional Budget Office reports that this action would save about $5
billion per year, far more than the proposed potential savings of
cutting SNAP and other beneficial programs while enhancing crop
insurance. (The Senate proposes saving less than $2 billion annually,
the House just over $3 billion.)</p><p>In other words, without hurting
conservation or poor people or foreign aid or progressive and
traditional farming, you could achieve targeted savings simply by
letting direct payments go away and refusing to boost the crop insurance
scam.</p><p>Boosters of crop insurance on steroids simply want a
government guarantee of farm revenue. Maybe you don’t want to scream
“communism!” but it’s the type of guarantee that no other industry in
this country would dare to dream of.</p><p>Avoid fatalism: Call your
representative (or at least support those agencies that are doing so)
and insist that payments to people like Fincher be ended without
replacing them with other subsidies to big ag. Let’s at least try to
protect the poor, the environment and our national health. </p><p>The alternative is to wait for the second coming. </p><p>1. This year going by the fun names of “<a href="http://agriculture.house.gov/bill/hr-6083-federal-agriculture-reform-and-risk-management-act">Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act</a>” (House version) and “<a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s954">Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act</a>” (Senate). Note that the titles tell us what matters to each of these bodies, and that food doesn’t cut it in the House.</p>
<p>2.
“People in need,” by the way, outnumber food stamp recipients, since
not everyone eligible for food stamps signs up. So really it’s a bit
worse than it sounds, and it sounds bad enough.</p><p>3. By design, it
is precisely when people are falling economically that an economic
safety net is most necessary, and food stamps are an entitlement: if you
qualify, you get ’em, no matter how big the budget line grows.</p><p>4. It actually gets worse. Here’s Fincher <a href="http://www.cato.org/blog/award-most-hypocritical-performance-member-congress-goes">quoted</a>
in the International Business Times: “[T]he role of citizens, of
Christians, of humanity, is to take care of each other,” Fincher said at
a Memphis event last week. “But not for Washington to steal money from
those in the country and give it to others in the country. Our role is
out of control.”</p><p>5. So: Buy the most expensive car you can afford,
even one you can’t afford. Premiums and deductibles are cheap. Wearing a
seat belt and a helmet, wreck it. Voilŕ!</p></div>
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</div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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