Last updated on 2011.06.21
Will Ag Committee Kristi Balk?
Back in February, Congresswoman Kristi Noem voted to protect subsidies for rich farmers like herself, opposing a measure that would have restricted the feds from paying more than $250,000 in farm subsidies per year to any one farmer or company.
Now a much more consistent conservative colleague of Noem's, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, has given us something better. Rep. Flake figures that if you're making more than $250,000 a year, you don't need a government handout. His amendment, passed without voiced opposition Tuesday in House Appropriations, would lower income limits for farm subsidies from the current $750K on-farm income and $500K off-farm income.
I welcome anyone, liberal or conservative, to explain why anyone who makes more than a quarter million dollars a year needs a government welfare check.
I especially welcome Congresswoman Kristi Noem to offer that explanation from her new seat on the House Agriculture Committee. (Funny the GOP leadership waited until June to appoint her to this seat: they must have wanted to wait until Kristi got her report card for her internship. She must have passed! Good work, Kristi!)
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Update 2011.06.21: Noem got her seat on House Ag thanks to Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), who vacated his House Ag seat to switch to House Financial Services. Fellow thirty-something farmer, Tea Party darling, and rookie Rep. Fincher is one of only two current House members who has received more farm subsidies than Noem.
Flake is a rising star in conservative circles and a real pain for Republicans like Kristi. Because he has a solid core.
We all know Noem doesn't have a core and I want to puke the way Republicans are falling all over her.
Well Corey, what did you expect? Now that she's on the Ag Committee she is going to make it priority #1 that she secures her family's farm subsidies. Everyone else is not top on that priority list as the evidence mounts.
She's also going to make darn sure the crop insurance companies get their take too, but, senior citizens like my father who has worked all his life and contributed to the system is not her concern. She just wants to continue to support Ryan's bad budget deal and turn another great program over to a fraudulent private insurance company scam where most of the federal subsidy money will go to line the pockets of private insurance company CEO's.
I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but, can we get Stephanie back please!?!!!!
I suppose you all are going to tell me SHS family does not receive subsidies?
No, why would I tell you that? The fact that Ralph Lars Herseth received $954K in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2009 has no impact on the point I'm making that Kristi Noem is now in a position to reduce such farm welfare payments but has actively voted against doing so. It also has no impact on the fact that support for farm subsidies may include some self-/family-interest for both women, but that SHS can at least enunciate a consistent political philosophy to justify that support, unlike Noem, who contradicts herself and her Tea-flavored babblings in voting to continue huge welfare payments to rich farmers like herself.
You guys are really stuck on farm subsidies, aren't you? I guess most probably have no idea what they are talking about when they bash it. 60% of subsidies are paid for by the top 5%, which excludes most, if not, all of you. Throw in the fact that a majority of Americans don't know the real price of food and you get a large uneducated populous who seems to think the are missing out on a gravy train that just isn't happening. Then again, I think we should do away with all of the farm subsidy programs, including the large portions that go to ebt, wic, and reduced school lunch programs. I'd like to see these people pay for food when it costs 20% more and they are getting 40% less from the backs of Americans. I suppose you would cry then that you are starving. I guess if that is the bed you make.....
Wait, so we can only afford food because the government subsidizes it? That signals a tremendous failure of the free market, and a tremendous argument in favor of socialism. You want to hang that around your neck? You want Kristi to campaign on that? By all means, go ahead.
SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM!
It's the idea that none of you understand the true effects of the things you condemn. You sit and act like people are getting rich and living lavish lives off of the backs of the working Americans. When in reality, the rich are subsidizing your food and paying for your welfare programs. Do away with it all and don't implement any other tax draining programs and I am with you. Is this where I put in......Caheildelberger's post is nothing more than baseless talking points that don't align with reality? Is that how you guys do it here?
You're screaming but not responding, Jenna. I am not rich. I am not living a lavish life (well, compared to 90% of the world's population I am!). We have an obligation (democratic, Christian, moral) to take care of each other with the wealth our nation has. Those who can do for themselves should do for themselves. People making over a quarter million dollars need no welfare checks. If you believe the free market cannot provide affordable food for all Americans, then you should support nationalizing the ag-industrial complex and putting all farmers under direct contract with the federal government.
You are talking aout exactly the problem in the health insurance market. Health care is unaffordable to most Americans. We thus create a Rube-Goldberg mess of private insurers that still leave millions of Americans unprotected and at risk of bankruptcy. We should adopt a single-payer system that gives Americans more liberty to pursue the careers of their choice without clinging to jobs they don't like and don't do well for employer-based health insurance. Jenna's thinking leads to the conclusion that socialism is better. I await Noem's admission of this point.
Now Jenna, stop screaming the word "baseless" as if it's some brilliant indictment of the rational arguments and evidence I offer. You haven't provided evidence for any of your arguments yet.