It's kind of obvious -- particularly when you check out the history showing which farmers have and which haven't benefited from farm subsidies -- that the current agricultural subsidies favor at one and same time large agricultural corporations and individual white farmers and ranchers... but not the partly black face of chronic unemployment. It's also another example of Republicans investing our taxes in their election.
Jonathan Chait writes about today's farm bills as featuring residues of Republican racism even more than budgetary radicalism. The dirty face of racism (and classism) is a Republican face when it comes to unemployment insurance. Those who need help urgently are told the money isn't there while subsidies for the pale face of big agriculture are simply added to the government's credit card.
A Boehner staffie is quoted saying that an extension of unemployment benefits is "likely to go 'nowhere'"."
So is that it? Does the dysfunctionality and ideological extremism of Boehner’s restive minions doom the unemployed to unmitigated suffering? Actually, there is a case to be made that Democrats have real leverage and, if they use it correctly, can win. ...Chait,DailyIntel
Some Republicans in the House don't just want to prevent an extension now; they want to end emergency unemployment benefits altogether. Unless we can pay for them up front. No such demands are made when it comes to subsidizing big farmers. But some House Republicans see the political difficulty.
That’s why, while a handful of free-market absolutists (like Rand Paul and the Wall Street Journal editorial page) are advocating outright for an end to emergency unemployment benefits, most Republicans in Congress are approaching the issue more delicately. Instead, they are professing to favor an extension of emergency benefits, but only if the measure is paid for with offsetting spending cuts. To simply extend unemployment benefits would “add to the deficit in an irresponsible way,” complains Republican Senator Mark Kirk. Boehner has made similarly noncommittal noises. ...Chait,DailyIntel
"Irresponsible"? Funny how it's not irresponsible to pass bills sending our taxes into the wallets of those who promote and facilitate "wars, tax cuts, drug benefits, energy subsidies, surges..." without demanding an "offset."
In the end (just to complete the circle of absurdity) no farm bill is actually needed. It's a crock.
But as it happens, the Democrats have leverage because Republicans are about to pull out the credit card and pass one of the policies they care about: the farm bill. Agriculture subsidies are a huge, bloated entitlement that shouldn’t exist at all on the merits, but Republicans like them because they benefit rich white people (or, to put it more charitably, their constituents). Many of us have thought Congress has to pass a farm bill because, otherwise, milk prices will go through the roof, and all sorts of goofy things will happen. Martha White suggests that this isn’t true: “Even under a worst-case scenario in which the government paid twice as much to dairy farmers as they do now, we’d be talking about $5.25 milk, not $8.” There’s no need to pass a farm bill at all. ...Chait,DailyIntel
Still, there are plenty of Americans who can't shake off their racism/classism prejudices. They continue to embrace the notion that poverty is really just about laziness. The first comment on Chait's article reads like this:
Unemployment insurance wasn't meant to be a lifestyle. Democrats made welfare a lifestyle 50 years ago with disastrous results, why do they think that endless unemployment checks will be any different? With the Obama economy soaring, why the need for more unemployment checks in the first place? To build dependency on government, that's why. It's time for the unemployed to suck it up and get a job. Usually when someone says "I can't" what they really mean is "I won't".
Ugly, ignorant, and self-absorbed. Which is to say, 21st-century rightwing Americans.
