GOP Congress Critters Outdo Dems 11 to 1 in Farm Subsidies

Last updated on 2011.04.04

Pop quiz! Suppose you have 23 farmers. Seventeen of them are Republicans. Six of them are Democrats. They've all received federal farm subsidies. Boom—that's all you know.

How much farm subsidy money would you guess those six Democrats have received compared to those seventeen Republicans? Or numerically, what's the ratio between total Dem subsidies and total GOP subsidies in this group? Possible answers:

1. 2:1. Those six Dems got twice as much as those seventeen Republicans. Even a handful of blood-sucking pinko Dem parasites will take lots more government handouts a whole bunch of red-blooded, Friedman-fearing Republicans.
2. 1:1. Those six Dems drew the same amount as those seventeen Republicans, since Democrats do tend to put more faith in government programs than Republicans.
3. 6:17. Individually, they all averaged the same amount. When it comes to farming, everybody's got to make ends meet, so quit looking for blog fodder, Cory!
4. 1:11: Individually, the Republicans averaged four times as much in subsidies as the Democrats.

Now, suppose the 23 subsidized farmers we're talking about were the 23 members of the 112th Congress who appear in the farm subsidy database. How much of the subsidy pie have they eaten over the last fifteen years?

The answer, courtesy of the Environmental Working Group:

• $5.3 million for seventeen Republicans—$313K per Elephantine Congressperson.
• $490,000 for six Democrats—$82K per Dome Donkey.

As a group, the Republicans currently in Congress have taken nearly eleven times as much in farm subsidies as their current Democratic counterparts. Individually, those Republicans have taken nearly four times as much as the Dems across the aisle.

To be fair, one of the Republicans really bends the curve... and it's not our dear Kristi Noem! She's only third on the list. EWG is even nice to her and, instead of counting her whole family's subsidy take of over three million dollars, multiplies the total Noem clan haul by Kristi's ownership share in Racota Valley Ranch and ascribes a mere $443,748 to our Congresswoman personally.

The big GOP subsidy hog is Rep. Steven Fincher from Tennessee, whose farm operations have slurped up $3.37 million in subsidies in the last fifteen years. Take him out of the pool, and the remaining sixteen Republicans average only $123K individually... only 41% more than their subsidized Congressional farming colleagues across the aisle.

Thank you, dear EWG and Kristi, too, for making blogging easy!

Update 14:07 CDT: EWG found another one! I have revised the text and numbers here to reflect 6 Dems and 17 Republicans.

Update 15:35: When you're making millions of dollars from Uncle Sam, who cares about a little dust? Reps. Fincher and Noem are hollering to get the EPA out of farmers' lives, but USDA intervention in their market with subsidy checks remains welcome.

Update 2011.04.04: The Noem family's corporate welfare earns our Congresswoman dishonorable mention in some Oklahoma commentary titled "Hypocrisy Reigns."