Texas is one of those places that personify the whole Red State BS — lots of bluster, belligerence and general bellicosity on being self-reliant, not feeding at the government trough and all of that other hooey about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and not relying on the government. Bloomburg has a great article called, Texas-Sized Safety Net Supports County Voting 83% Against Obama.
Here we get to take a good hard look at a very conservative county and how they are free to hang on to their delusions of self-reliance largely because they’ve been the recipient of $795M in government payments over the past 15 years:
Gaines County farmers took $797 million in payments from 1995 to 2010, including price supports, soil-conservation programs and crop- failure compensation, according to a database compiled by Washington-based lobby the Environmental Working Group. That puts it second in the nation behind Fresno County, California, as a recipient of federal funds.
I’m a strong proponent of getting rid of farming subsidies — certainly as they currently exist — and even getting out of the farming insurance business. Why wouldn’t the private sector want a crack at this? Here’s the most recent haul of taxpayer funds for this county:
In bad years — like 2011 — he can rely on the government for help. Record-low rainfall triggered record-high crop insurance payouts of $125 million last year to local farmers, with taxpayers subsidizing $30.8 million of the $46.9 million of the premiums paid in the county that year. Loepky received about $1 million, which paid half of his loans for the year.
These are people who are screaming about the safety net for other Americans — whether you are unemployed or poor — and yet here they are defying every bit of the free market by insisting that taxpayers pay for them to farm.
Which sounds fairly socialist, right? Or at least socializes the risk of farming to taxpayers when this is not a risk we should be subsidizing. And certainly not for crops like cotton, wheat, soybeans, corn. This is one of those places where conservatives should get what they ask for — the government getting out of their way and withdrawing their subsidies in the process.