farm subsidies

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$1T Farm Bill Slashes Subsidies, Food Stamps

Bipartisan measure is 2 years overdue

(Newser) - In another outburst of things actually getting done on Capitol Hill, House and Senate negotiators have rolled out a bipartisan farm bill—only two years overdue. The nearly $1 trillion, five-year bill cuts federal spending by around $23 billion, including about $8 billion from the food stamp program.
  • The bill
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Simpson, Bowles Back With Sequel to Deficit Plan

They want to slash another $2.4T, far exceeding Obama's goals

(Newser) - If you liked the first Simpson-Bowles plan, good news! Washington's favorite bipartisan hypothetical budget slashers have come up with a sequel of sorts, proposing $2.4 trillion in new (and probably politically impossible) deficit cuts over the next decade, Politico reports. How would they get there?
  • They'd slash
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Seriously? We Can't Even Cut Farm Subsidies?
Seriously? We Can't Even
Cut Farm Subsidies?
Robert Samuelson
Jan 7, 2013 1:45 PM CST

Seriously? We Can't Even Cut Farm Subsidies?

Robert Samuelson says farm handouts exemplify our broken system

(Newser) - Farm subsidies are widely seen as the "low hanging fruit" of federal spending cuts, but with the milk cliff looming, Congress last week passed an agriculture bill that left them all essentially intact . And that, in a nutshell, is "the essence of the deficit problem," writes Robert...

Protesting EU Farmers Spray Cops With ... Milk?

They're protesting low milk prices

(Newser) - Thousands of enraged dairy farmers converged on the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday, and sprayed the building, and the cops who showed up to contain them, with their stock in trade: milk. The protesters arrived on tractors, blocked traffic along many of the city's main streets, then pulled out...

Drought-Ravaged Farmland Selling for More Than in 2011

Prices keep rising, thanks to federal subsidies, insurance payments

(Newser) - With a historically awful drought laying waste to fields across the country, you might think farmland prices would be down—but you'd be wrong. The average price of farmland in Iowa jumped 24% in the second quarter compared to last year, while in Illinois it rose 15%, according to...

Taxpayers on Hook for $10B as Drought Ravages Crops

Subsidized insurance program draws criticism

(Newser) - Crop farmers are on track to record about $18 billion in losses thanks to this year's historically nasty drought—and by one expert's estimate, the federal government is on the hook for about $10 billion of that, thanks to the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance program, the Washington ...

How the Drought Could Actually Help Farms

Devastated corn could prompt change: William G. Moseley

(Newser) - The drought is devastating America's corn crops—but that could actually be a good thing, argues William G. Moseley in the New York Times . Right now, the Midwest is "dangerously focused" on corn and soybeans, and the lack of diversity "restricts our diets, degrades our soils, and...

John McCain Livid Over Popcorn Subsidy

Trying to kill pork project of strangely silent Nebraska senators

(Newser) - Nebraska's two senators have been quiet—you might even say sneaky—about inserting a provision to help popcorn growers into the new farm bill. Both are on the Agriculture Committee, and they slid a provision into the bill saying that the Agriculture secretary "may" consider revenue insurance subsidies...

Satellites, Drones Spy on Europe's Farms

EU using eyes in the sky to spot subsidy fraud

(Newser) - Satellites and spy drones are scanning farmland in the European Union, and their findings can lead to something nearly as damaging as an air strike: a subsidy cut. The EU spends billions every year in farm subsidies, and eyes in the sky are increasingly being used as a tool to...

Taxpayers Subsidizing Junk Food: Report

To the tune of $16.9B over 15 years

(Newser) - Is America’s obesity epidemic government subsidized? That’s the question CALPIRG and the US PIRG Education Fund set out to answer with a new study, and its answer was affirmative, according to the LA Times . From 1995 to 2010, the government handed $16.9 billion in farm subsidies to...

Ethanol Group Paid Gingrich $300K

Former House speaker was lobbying coalition's highest-paid consultant

(Newser) - Newt Gingrich earned more than $300,000 acting as a consultant to a coalition of ethanol lobbying groups in 2009, according to IRS records. The possible GOP 2012 candidate—who declared "I am not a lobbyist for ethanol" during a spat with Wall Street Journal editors over his support...

3 GOP State Senators in Wisconsin Get Farm Subsidies

Critics see it as hypocrisy on spending

(Newser) - Three GOP state senators in Wisconsin fighting to cut wages and collective bargaining rights of public workers in the name of the budget have accepted a total of about $300,000 in federal farm subsidies, reports Sam Stein at the Huffington Post . There's no direct link between the subsidies and...

Al Gore: I Was Wrong About Corn-Based Ethanol

Corn-based fuel does little to help environment, he admits

(Newser) - Al Gore regrets supporting subsidies for corn-based ethanol when he was in office, he revealed during a speech in Athens yesterday, confessing that he’d done it more to bolster his presidential ambitions than to help the planet. “First generation ethanol I think was a mistake,” Gore said,...

Palin Backs Tea Partier Who Raked In $300K in Subsidies

Clint Didier calls federal government a 'predator,' but cashes in

(Newser) - A Tea Party-backed candidate who calls the government "a predator" and denounces public spending as a "Marxist utopia" appears to have made a special exception for himself, hauling in almost $300,000 in federal farming subsidies. Washington Senate candidate Clint Didier was endorsed by Sarah Palin yesterday, notes...

At Summit, World Leaders Pledge to Help Haiti Rebuild

Gathering sees cooperation, reluctance to address endemic problems

(Newser) - World leaders at an international summit in Montreal today agreed that rebuilding Haiti will take decades. In fact, "rebuilding" is hardly the word—if successful, the state envisioned by envoys to the conference will bear little resemblance to pre-earthquake Haiti. Canadian PM Stephen Harper said the world community must...

Bachmann Farm Reaped $252K in Gov't Subsidies

Free-market fan is a closet welfare queen, writes Yasha Levine

(Newser) - Rep. Michelle Bachmann is one of the Capitol's most vocal opponents of socialized medicine—but she's happy to take government handouts for socialized dairy and corn, writes Yasha Levine. Records show that the Minnesota Republican's family farm raked in almost $252,000 in agricultural subsidies between 1995 and 2006, Levine...

Dem Lawmakers Cry Foul on Obama Budget Cuts

President's targets for cuts have eager defenders in Congress

(Newser) - To make an omelet, you’ve got to break some eggs. But some of the eggs President Obama broke in the list of budget cuts unveiled yesterday were golden eggs for lawmakers, and even members of his own party wasted no time in protesting, the Washington Post reports. Dems who...

Obama Can't Cull Farm Subsidies

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s attempt to slash farm subsidies seems to have died on the vine, the New York Times reports. The $9.7 billion in cuts Obama included in his budget outline were conspicuously absent from the outlines the House and Senate approved Thursday, squashed by farm state lawmakers. Now...

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