If Obama calling for jihad in Pakistan or Bush bringing peace to the
Middle-East with 50 billion dollars worth of weapons spread around
hasn't totally bummed you out, then you might enjoy knowing that the
Democrats haven't forgotten how to roll over and play dead.

We really need campaign finance reform and a third party. These two
stink.

http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/8/4/96266248.html


The Sacramento Bee, Calif., Daniel Weintraub column: New Democrats
support same old U.S. farm policy



Jul 31, 2007 (The Sacramento Bee - McClatchy-Tribune Information
Services via COMTEX) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have listened
to Berkeley chef Alice Waters, or to Michael Pollan, author of "The
Omnivore's Dilemma." Instead, she went with the Farmers Rice Co-op, King
Ranch and Buttonwillow Land and Cattle Co.

Waters and Pollan were among those urging Pelosi and the House of
Representatives she leads to overhaul the nation's farm policy, shifting
billions of dollars from subsidies for corporate agribusiness to a
means-tested safety net for real family farmers, plus policies to
promote healthier foods and sound stewardship of the land.

But Pelosi last week turned back their pleas and sided with big
agriculture -- and her political instincts. She is supporting a farm
bill that would preserve the worst parts of U.S. policy and, perhaps,
help farm-state Democratic incumbents maintain their tenuous hold on
districts they captured in the 2006 elections.

Pelosi says that the bill she supports includes the "first steps" toward
reform. But at best those steps are tiny. And since the United States
sets farm policy only once every five years, this was a rare opportunity
for Democrats to show that their newly ascendant leadership in Congress
will fight for real change. They've failed that test.

U.S. farm policy is a remnant from the Great Depression, when more than
a quarter of Americans made their living off the land and were
vulnerable to changes in the weather and market conditions. Today,
farming is a big business increasingly dominated by large corporations.
But the subsidies originally adopted for the family farmer continue and
have been warped to favor the largest companies at the expense of the
little guy.

According to Environmental Defense, 10 percent of farming operations now
collect more than 60 percent of direct subsidies paid under the farm
bill. And according to OxFam America, a non-profit working to end world
hunger, 92 percent of the subsidies go to the growers of just five
commodities: corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice.

California ranked 10th in the nation in payments received from 1995
through 2005, but 91 percent of California farmers and ranchers do not
get any payments at all, according to the Environmental Working Group,
which tracks the subsidies and publishes a database of the recipients.
The Rice Co-op was the biggest California recipient last year, with
payments of more than $5 million spread among its members. Texas-based
King Ranch, with operations in California, and the Buttonwillow Land and
Cattle Co. were not far behind.

The subsidies encourage farmers to grow big-volume crops, flooding world
markets at the expense of small farmers in other countries and drawing
complaints against U.S. policy at the World Trade Organization. The
current subsidies also lower the cost of raw materials for the processed
food companies that rely on corn syrup and soy, while doing almost
nothing for the growers of fresh fruits and vegetables and the consumers
who want to buy them.

While it would be better to phase out all subsidies, that isn't feasible
in today's political climate. The next best thing might be the idea
pushed by the movement Waters and Pollan helped lead. Their coalition is
pushing for a third way -- not ending the subsidies but overhauling them
to put them in the service of a different set of policy goals.

Those goals were reflected in an amendment authored by Wisconsin
Democrat Ron Kind and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. Their proposal
would have replaced price guarantees and direct payments with a safety
net to protect farmers from declines in prices and crop yields. It would
have denied subsidies to farms making more than $500,000 a year (or
$250,000 per person), and it would have shifted some of that money into
programs to preserve fragile land and promote specialty crops, organic
foods and farmers markets.

But with the House Agriculture committee dominated by farm-state
Democrats, including nine freshmen looking to strengthen their hold on
their seats, it would have taken strong leadership from Pelosi to steer
the debate toward reform. Kind's proposal failed, and the bill that
resulted protects the status quo. While it purports to limit payments to
$1 million per person or $2 million per farm, critics say that it opens
new loopholes that will actually let some operations collect more than
ever.

The irony is that the reform proposal would have distributed more money
than current policy to the vast majority of congressional districts.
That's because the farmers in just 20 districts now collect more than
half the subsidies. According to Environmental Defense, 36 of 55
freshmen would have seen their farmers do better under the Kind
amendment, with only 7 doing worse. For the others it would have been a
wash. But in each district, large and powerful farm operations would
have suffered at the expense of smaller, less influential growers. Thus
the vote in favor of Big Ag.

Fortunately, the House won't have the last word on this matter. The
Senate has yet to act, and House Democrats might have overreached when
they included a last-minute tax increase to help pay for programs they
added to their bill to buy off the opposition. This is one food fight
that is likely to continue all summer.
--
FB - FFF

Billy
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/