A Look at How Red State Welfare Queens Operate
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.
Tags: Republican Bamboozlement
You don’t have to go to Texas, and you don’t even have to look at farm subsidies.
Look right at Sussex County, Delaware, which has the highest per-capita rate of direct government payments to individuals of the the three counties – and that is before taking farm subsidies into account. Presumably the direct payments are mostly the basic safety-net entitlements.
And yet they never tire of strutting their virtue over the socialist heathens upstate and in blue states, when in fact money is being redistributed into Sussex from wealthier taxpayers in the centers of wealth and productivity (including NCC).
You can look up the numbers in detail on the Consolidated Federal Funds Report. Look for “Direct payments to individuals.”
Farm subsidy data is available here: http://farm.ewg.org
Let’s see people who work 7 days a week much of the year 12 plus hours a day providing something we absolutely need for our survival as an independent nation getting a safety net to keep them in business are welfare queens while people who do nothing are victims of society.
Liberals really are lost in the woods before they ever get to the trees.
Gee David. More proof u need to either get Out more
David. I am a farmers kid. You are an idiot
You do NOT milk the thing with balls and when the ground is frozen besides feeding the animals there is not a lOt to do
Get over ur romanticized notions of the mediveal days and grow up
Ou just go away
So David – you are arguing that farmers work hard, produce things that people need, and are entitled to a fair price, along with support when times are tough.
Are you sure you aren’t a union man?
I work 7 days a week… david, can you pay my car insurance?
Delusional David shows us the depth of GOP hypocrisy on the safety net business:
a) Bailouts and safety nets for banks — SOCIALISM
b) Bailouts and safety nets for Car companies — SOCIALISM
c) Bailouts and safety nets for farmers — CAPITALISM
d) Bailouts and safety nets for the unemployed and poor — SOCIALISM
What you should take from this is that while these fools are busily mouthing their platitudes about “free markets” and “capitalism” and “not picking winners or losers”, is that they have no freaking idea of what they are talking about. Bailouts and safety nets for businesses — even farmers — *always* interferes with free markets. Sometimes you want to put the thumb on the scale for your industries (that is what government does), but you want to do that so that you protect some competitiveness. Not because these guys are on your side.
The thing I want to know is what happens when the Delusional Davids of the world actually wake up to the fact that not only are they being lied to by their handlers, but they are being made to look utterly ridiculous in the process.
“Cognitive Dissonance keeps me from destroying myself and others.”
– your mom
Let’s see people who work 7 days a week much of the year 12 plus hours a day providing something we absolutely need for our survival as an independent nation getting a safety net to keep them in business are welfare queens while people who do nothing are victims of society.
You have an outdated notion of who actually does the WORK on our nation’s farm’s, David. In most cases, the man or woman who owns the farm does not work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. The people working those long hours are usually migrant workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are not American citizens.
Your notion of the family farm is rapidly disappearing. You can blame price-fixing big Agribusiness for that. Think ADM, Tyson, Excel, Monsanto, etc.
How’s this for socialism David??
http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=10005
•$126 million in subsidies 1995-2010.
$79.9 million in commodity subsidies.
$23.1 million in crop insurance subsidies.
$10.9 million in conservation subsidies.
$11.9 million in disaster subsidies.
•Delaware ranking: 39 of 50 States
•Top Commodity Recipients 1995-2010
•Top Commodity Recipients in 2010
•63 percent of farms in Delaware did not collect subsidy payments – according to USDA.
•Ten percent collected 74 percent of all subsidies.
•Amounting to $75.9 million over 16 years.
•Top 10%: $28,743 average per year between 1995 and 2010.
•Bottom 80%: $581 average per year between 1995 and 2010.
Here s list of who got what in 2010:
http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=10005&progcode=total_dp&yr=2010®ionname=SussexCounty,Delaware
Horsey Turf Farms got 40k – WHAT exactly do they produce that I need again??
and can I get million dolalr pus subsidy for my business that I DO work 7 days a week on?
Pucker,
I wouldn’t call areas OUTSIDE of downtown Wilmington (M thru F, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Trolley Square, Cool Springs, the Highlands or the Port of Wilmington “centers of wealth and productivity”.
More like ‘centers of doing absolutely nothing all day, while dodging bullets at night’.
For all this belly-aching (by well-fed bellies, mind you) about farm subsidies going to so-called ‘Red States’, at least you get something in return. What pray-tell do you get in return by giving a ‘Blue State’ dwelling welfare queen extra child support for her 5 fatherless babies, other than a 12 to 15 year delay between the time the illiterate, free-lunched bastards are born and the time they enter the juvenile justice system?
The large tract farmers in Delaware that I’ve worked with in the past routinely put in 12+ hour days 6 or 7 days a week. Not so much during the winter, but definitly more often than not during the growing seasons. Does this make them medieval?
@QP–
It is highly unlikely that anyone is “dodging bullets” in any of the neighborhoods you mentioned–including the Port.
What pray-tell do you get in return by giving a ‘Blue State’ dwelling welfare queen extra child support for her 5 fatherless babies…
Neither the Feds nor DE pays “child support”, so I assume you mean AFDC, WIC, Welfare, SSI and other direct-payment programs.
What we get is children who aren’t starving, for starters. We also get children who have a CHANCE at an education, and a better life.
I work in West Center City. I’m at street level and my doors are open all day. I see the “welfare queens” and their spawn every day. Generations of them. They live a miserable existence & they often squander their EBT money on subs, candy, soda & other crap. The welfare system is rife with flaws, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to subsidize millionaire farmers.
Anon40, I said areas outside of the enclaves of wealth and prosperity are where ppl are dodging bullets. ‘East side, west side, norff side, riva side etc.’
“The welfare system is rife with flaws, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to subsidize millionaire farmers.”
Uh, yes it does. Not only do they feed us, but they also feed the urban dwellers living miserable existences…so they won’t come a-knocking on my door for ‘chikans and shramps’.
QP so you have a special soap you use to clean the slime off yourself?, just askin’
What they are feeding the urban dwellers is all of the crap that is killing them — junk food, soda, HRCS candies, etc. And these subsidies produce surpluses in stuff like wheat, which sits in large silos even though the farmer got his *market price* for it. Real food is largely unsubsidized — just travel around to the farmers markets and farmstands this summer and ask those farmers what government subsidies they get for all of that glorious sweet corn and tomatos they grow. And those farmers don’t have a government who will stockpile the surplus they grow — but local food banks and food programs often get the benefit.
But then, we already knew that QP here was part of the GOP hypocrisy brigade. Bailouts for farmers, but not for auto workers.
“What they are feeding the urban dwellers is all of the crap that is killing them…”
Correction: ‘What certain urban dwellers are feeding themselves’.
Choices, we all can make them, right???
JP,
I’m not the one being an unproductive leech on society. I actually build things. So if my disgust for people who choose to do nothing, for themselves or their posterity, oh-so bothers your bleeding little heart, well then, you’re probably part of the problem that coddles and enables their retrograde behavior.
This is directly from your own locution:
So which is it then? Are farmers feeding urban dwellers or are urban dwellers feeding themselves?
Just go away QP. You aren’t ready for the adult table and it isn’t likely that you will be anytime soon. Put yourself out of your misery.
QP you are the reason I liked Jack Kevorkian.
@QP “I’m not the one being an unproductive leech on society.”
How about a little consistency? How is it possible to whine about giving some 5 year old kid whose father walked out on him a few cheap meals, and at the SAME time argue that millionaire farmers should get lots of welfare dollars?
Oh. They give us food after we pay them for it. So they’re like waiters and need a big big tip… Is that it? We need to give them a tip?
How can you explain your ridiculous position? You do realize that these millionaires lobbied very hard for this welfare via donations to politicians, and that it’s the main result of giving every sparsely populated farm state two US Senators? So there’s no logical reason nor compelling need for our largess.
“How is it possible to whine about giving some 5 year old kid whose father walked out on him a few cheap meals, and at the SAME time argue that millionaire farmers should get lots of welfare dollars?”
be a conservative.
Absolutely against them. Not all the leaches are poor.
@QP–
Yes, we can all make choices. However, the choice is often limited in poor neighborhoods. Malt liquor ($.50/12 oz can) is cheaper than bottled water ($1.00/500mL bottle) at 7th & Washington. Fresh bananas cost $.89/lb at Shop Rite on 202, but they sell for $1 EACH at the corner store. With “choices” like these, is it any wonder people who live in poor neighborhoods drink malt liquor & eat crappy food?
a40, that isnt the best analogy. “free” water comes out of the tap… and unless you’re in Newark (at leas as far as our area is concerned) it’s potable.
The problem is the fast food factory farm model. Huge portions of the population are only paid enough to afford highly processed “food” that makes humans sick more easily. This “food” comes from QP’s beloved mom and pop meat factories. QP, i dare you to go to one of McDonald’s … or even Tyson’s… “down home good ‘merkin” farms and still defend their subsidies. Oh, you’ll see people working long hours in tough conditions, but they are probably the illegals you so badly want deported, or gassed, or whatever the hate of the day is. (yes, your dear farmers are the main ones to blame for the stream of “aliens”) The other affordable food is your potato chip/ cheese puff variety that fast tracks you for high BP and diabetes. Now, since insurance companies aren’t allowed to just put down sick people… although elect Romney and who knows….. those people who were only paid enough money to poison themselves receive care…. and again, poor…. the hospital bill gets passed on to you and me in the form of higher over all health care costs.
What about the Sussex residents who AREN’T farmers?
The point is, even taking the ag subsidies out of the picture, if you live in Sussex you are more likely to find a governnment check in your mailbox than people in NCC.
People in Sussex get government assistance for all the same reasons NCC residents do. And of course they should get it. But maybe they should think twice before calling people socialists. And if they don’t, we are entitled to an eyeroll or two.
Not that facts seem welcome to this discussion, but the “people” who own the farms being subsidized are mainly giant agribusinesses — you know, the kind of “people” Mitt Romney likes so much.
wait! hold the phone! you mean all food doesnt come from the old couple in American Gothic? I. AM. SHOCKED!
Cass nailed it: These people don’t know anything about the interconnections that hold all these issues together. David likes farm supports because he lives in a farming area. He doesn’t bother with any of the details, unless one of his conservative web sites decides to highlight some (usually out-of-context) detail to demonize government.
QP actually embodies the “thought process” of these people: I work. Somewhere, someone doesn’t. That’s not fair.
That’s it. It’s no more sophisticated than that. And Cass has the proper response: You’re not ready to sit at the adult table.
More thought policing I see…you people deserve each other.
Ditto to geezer—everybody thinks it’s so easy–like the plains and rocky west can just water themselves–wouldn’t go near the farming/city outrage here—when it all comes down to water. and cass will have it covered with water.
It’s not thought policing. It’s pointing out your absence of thought.
Money spent on open spaces and farms or cash wasted on a group that would fail no matter how much they are given;is there really a choice?’Liberals’ have created a permanent ‘entitlement’ class that will ALWAYS vote demonrat and NEVER go away.The dems can’t afford to lose these ‘voters’.We are past the tipping point of taxpayers versus non-payers-the non-payers always vote more for them and soak the ‘rich’.Try this-lay down with the idea of getting a good night sleep TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW,not getting high and making more crack babies.Or ,try this-look at the ‘greater good’ or let’s take care of the taxpayers and let the crackheads figure something out for themselves.I still take pride in what’s left of America( but it ain’t much).Lazy bastards don’t like farmers? get a crack whore to feed you! Most ‘folks’ couldn’t live on mac and cheese or ‘Happy Meals”.It’s way past time to get a life-we are sick and tired of paying your bills.
’Liberals’ have created a permanent ‘entitlement’ class that will ALWAYS vote demonrat and NEVER go away.
Always fun to read the scribbling from the know-nothing party.
“We are past the tipping point of taxpayers versus non-payers-the non-payers always vote more for them and soak the ‘rich’.”
I realize the concept of “research” is probably beyond you — the voices in your head agree with you more often, I’m sure — but economists have figured out who most of those “non-taxpayers” are. We call them “retired people” — a group you might recognize as strongly represented in the Tea and Republican parties.
@JG “’Liberals’ have created a permanent ‘entitlement’ class that will ALWAYS vote demonrat and NEVER go away.”
Clueless.. Really clueless. Most of the people on welfare are WHITE, and most of those are red state CONSERVATIVES, and many are even wealthy. That’s the real entitlement class.
“..we are sick and tired of paying your bills.”
Yea!! But just remember that for the most part, “we” is blue, and “your” is red.
Not sure I get your point Joanne — I certainly don’t think that farming is easy. But I’m really sure that the kind of farming that gets taxpayer subsidies needs those subsidies anymore. Farming in the Rockies and West is notoriously hard, and water issues are at the heart of it. But there is alot of the West that would not exist today if not for the massive water projects American taxpayers funded in the early part of the last century. Certainly cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix (for starters) would not exist in their current form if not for taxpayers funding a good part of the water infrastructure they benefit from. But people who are screaming that we shouldn’t spend money on fixing our road infrastructure certainly shouldn’t be first at the gate for funds to transport water to where it doesn’t exist.
“Try this-lay down with the idea of getting a good night sleep TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW,not getting high and making more crack babies.”
i bet you call yourself a “christian”
That’s where I’m agreeing w/ you cass–none of those farms are even possible if it wasn’t for the massive water and irrigation projects underwritten by our government–and it’s fine w/ me. But those welfare purists would argue as though they carried the buckets from the stream themselves.
Water rights are a huge big deal w/ land ownership out west. Here, we never think about it. I have 2 attorney relatives who both deal w/ water rights as their specialty–and people have been shot over which way the creek was diverted.
It sounds to me like the gop would doom the children of the scumbags just to spite the scumbags.