# Bush to cut farm subsidies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684 "2005-02-06T19:31:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/1 "2005-02-06T19:31:38Z")
It looks like Bush may be serious about cutting spending, finally: [Bush Is Said to Seek Sharp Cuts in Subsidy Payments to Farmers](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/politics/06budget.html?oref=login) > [@](#): > > President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday. > > Such limits would help reduce the federal budget deficit and would inject market forces into the farm economy, the officials said. > > The proposal puts Mr. Bush at odds with some of his most ardent supporters in the rural South, including cotton and rice growers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. > > The new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, and more than 100 farm groups are gearing up to fight the White House proposal. The administration’s willingness to push the proposal, despite such protests, suggests how tight the new budget will be. > > Most of the subsidies are paid to large farm operators growing cotton and rice and, to a lesser degree, corn, soybeans and wheat. > > Mr. Bush would set a firm overall limit of $250,000 on subsidies that can now exceed $1 million in some cases. This is kind of what I was hoping for - once Bush no longer had to worry about being re-elected, he could take on some sacred cows. Farm subsidies are about as sacred as it gets these days, especially in the ‘red states’. Is this something we can all support? Anyone want to criticise this move? Do you think he’ll pull it off? I personally have grave doubts that he can pull it off. This is just the kind of thing that winds up getting killed in the Senate once all the special interests (commercial farm lobby) start leaning on their Senators and congressmen. Still, it’s the right move. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/2 "2005-02-06T19:42:40Z")
Hell, I think it’s the right move. But I think it’s more likely that it’s a trial balloon designed to garner attention to him as ‘trying to do something’ and he’ll back down or shift to something less politically explosive that won’t do as much. Remember, he may not need to get re-elected but he’d REALLY like to not have either the Senate or the House in Democratic hands after 2006. And this sort of thing has the potential to do that to him. Not to mention the downstream effect on 2008. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/3 "2005-02-06T19:42:55Z")
I support this fully, and if he pulls it off, I will begin to judge him much less harshly than I have. I **seriously** doubt he’s going to be able to push it through Congress though. I’ll be shocked if the Dems don’t see this as a wedge issue and vote mainly along party lines to try and pry off the Republican grip in rural states. And, of course, there’s no way he’s going to get the Republicans from affected areas to go along with it. Consider the whole thing stillborn. Sounds like one of those things given lip-service and never fought for to me, though. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/4 "2005-02-06T19:48:29Z")
[No-registration link](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget&e=1&ncid=) I don’t have much to add that hasn’t already been said. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/5 "2005-02-06T20:03:00Z")
I support the notion, but I don’t think Bush is serious about trying to actually cut farm subsidies. Small rural states have too much power in the Senate for it to fly, and there’s only so far he can go in opposing his own supporters. My guess is that he’ll make a bit of a show of pushing for reduced farm subsidies and then back off as a concession so he can get something he wants more, like his SS plan. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/6 "2005-02-06T20:10:04Z")
I doubt this proposal will get far or the proposal isn’t quite what it seems. It won’t fail to come about be because large numbers of producers oppose the changes, but just the opposite reason. The big money boys get most of the bucks as it is, and write the checks for campaign expenses. For example, about 50% of cotton subsidies go to about 3% of cotton growers. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/7 "2005-02-06T20:10:35Z")
Thing is, Bush has credibility when he says he’ll do something, because he usually follows through. But he also knows how to deal, and I suspect this is the opening salvo. The proposal he’s making is pretty drastic - serious, deep cuts across the board. I don’t think that’ll fly politically, but it could certainly set the stage for negotiations on some lower-level cuts. I get a little tired of the criticism that Bush ‘doesn’t mean it’ when he proposes something you agree with. We had this debate last year over the NASA exploration vision. The Bush opponents who actually liked the idea fell back on the criticism that ‘he doesn’t mean it’. But he did, and NASA got every nickel of funding it needed, and it took Bush to threaten a veto on an omnibus appropriations bill to get it. He meant what he said. So I think he really means to cut farm subsidies, but I don’t think this is anywhere near the final proposal. It’s just not going to fly - there are way too many entrenched interests, and too many of them are Republicans he needs to pass his other initiatives. So expect some horse trading. At the very least, this is a signal that Bush will not entertain further subsidies. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/8 "2005-02-06T20:41:12Z")
I would be interested in hearing about whether this move will take us further down the road of being non-self supporting in agriculture (i.e. a net food importer) and whether this is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Monocracy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monocracy/32/4493_2.png) [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/9 "2005-02-06T21:27:59Z")
I saw this in one of the budget summaries a few months ago. During his first term, non-military/non-homeland defense spending rose about 5% each year. For the next year, it was at 0%, so he’s definitely going to try to cut spending somewhere. Although, i see no end in spending for military and homeland defense, which take up a significant portion of the budget, so i see no way he can reach his goal of reducing the deficit to $200 billion by 2009. (And what a shitty goal it is!) I know virtually nothing about the effects of farm subsidies, so i can’t really comment on whether this is a good or bad thing. It will reduce spending, but will it hurt the economy? Will it help the economy? What effects would this decision have? ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/10 "2005-02-06T23:41:21Z")
If hes serious about cutting some fat off the subsidies hog, more power to him. IF hes really going after the fat, and not the few remaining little guys. Should be interesting to watch. Too bad he won’t go after Pentagon fat the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/11 "2005-02-07T00:38:34Z")
Removing subsidies worked a treat in New Zealand ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/12 "2005-02-07T00:53:14Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Removing subsidies worked a treat in New Zealand Yep. The farmers kicked and screamed and said the industry would go under, but five years later the farms were healthier, the animals were healthier, the streams were cleaner, and the government was wasting less money. ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/13 "2005-02-07T01:38:28Z")
Heh. You know, my first reaction was kind of angry, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. I like that it was primaraly agricultural states that elected him, and here is the thanks they get. I pity whomever tries to run as the republican candidate in '08. They are gonna get crushed. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/14 "2005-02-07T02:02:43Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > It looks like Bush may be serious about cutting spending, finally I’m not so sure. > [@](#): > > Agriculture Department officials said Mr. Bush’s proposals would cut federal payments to farmers by $587 million, or about 5 percent, next year and would save $5.7 billion in the coming decade. A half billion a year is getting serious about cutting spending? A half billion is chump change to _our_ federal government. It doesn’t even register in the US federal budget. 5% doesn’t make it a really substantial cut of farm subsidies, either. So, I take back what I said about there being little chance he was serious, because I was under the impression we were talking about serious cuts here, which are a non-starter in Congress. These minor cuts might actually pass, but I don’t see that it’s particularly significant, though I suppose it’s better than the alternative. On a more positive note, I like the cut coming in the form of an absolute cap on how much an operation can receive in subsidies. Politically savvy, too, since the proposed cuts wouldn’t impact most family farms. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/15 "2005-02-07T02:23:09Z")
Bush will never get anywhere getting farm subsidies cut, not with well over half of all Republican Congressmen with farm-heavy districts that’ll vote down whoever is in office in ten seconds if he votes against farm subsidies. Most small-farm operators oppose caps, too – they all have a starry-eyed belief that they’ll make it big someday and so voting for caps will hurt them down the road. Sorta the way virtually all the farmers were in favor of repealing the estate tax because “their farms are subject to it” even though nobody has found a single instance of a farm estate that was subjected to the federal estate tax in the past ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/16 "2005-02-07T03:00:03Z")
I think he’ll succeed. Maybe not as much as he’d like but he’ll get some sort of reduction and it will be a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/17 "2005-02-07T03:10:55Z")
Perhaps somebody who knows something about agricultural policy can fill us in: Why do we have farm subsidies in the first place? I’ve always understood they’re given out to pay farmers **not** to grow too much, thus preventing overproduction from driving down the prices of their products, which supposedly would drive a lot of farmers out of business. But farmers – at least, small-scale family farmers – have been going out of business steadily for decades, their land being either bought up by agribiz corporations or allowed to return to a wild state. From “Worldly Wealth,” by Michael Lind, in _Prospect,_ June 26, 2004, [http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=1869:](http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=1869:) > [@](#): > > Is a dramatic downsizing of agricultural land use possible? Thanks to the growth of agricultural productivity, reforestation and “rewilding” has been under way in the industrial countries for generations. Since 1950 the equivalent of Texas and Oklahoma combined have been retired from agricultural use. And since 1950 more land in the US has been set aside in parks than has been occupied by urban and suburban growth. Much of what was farmland in the 19th century is now forest again. In his essay, “The Liberation of the Environment,” in Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment (1997) Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University pointed out: “If the world’s farmers can lift the global average yield about 1.5 per cent per year over the next six or seven decades to the level of today’s European wheat, 10bn people can enjoy a 6,000-calorie diet and still spare close to a quarter of the present 1.4bn hectares of cropland… equivalent to the area of India.” Taking the best Iowa maize growers as the norm for world agriculture, Paul E Waggoner, in an essay in the same book, “How Much Land Can Ten Billion People Spare for Nature?,” calculated that less than a tenth of present cropland could support a population of 10bn. > > The high agricultural productivity of industrialised nations has come at a price - the use of environmentally harmful fertilisers and pesticides. Biotechnology holds out the promise that new strains of crops can be more resistant to pests and require few or no fertilisers. Those who object to “frankenfood” strains created in petri dishes can relax: “smart breeding,” a kind of traditional breeding aided by computer analysis, can accomplish many of the same results as more direct genetic engineering. In the words of the environmental scholar Martin W Lewis: “As advances in biotechnology make agriculture more efficient, large tracts of land can be progressively returned to nature.” (Slight hijack, that’s really about technology, not agricultural economics or government policy.) Also, how long have we had farm subsidies in the U.S.? Did they come in with the New Deal? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/18 "2005-02-07T03:24:31Z")
As a Canadian, I’m doing a happy dance on this one. I hope he pulls it off. ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/19 "2005-02-07T04:17:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Perhaps somebody who knows something about agricultural policy can fill us in: Why do we have farm subsidies in the first place? I’ve always understood they’re given out to pay farmers **not** to grow too much, thus preventing overproduction from driving down the prices of their products, which supposedly would drive a lot of farmers out of business. But farmers – at least, small-scale family farmers – have been going out of business steadily for decades, their land being either bought up by agribiz corporations or allowed to return to a wild state. Well, I’m not an ag. expert; however, subsidies (along with import restrictions) serve several purposes: While the most commonly known way to subsidize ag. if to pay farmers not to grow crops, another way is for the government to act as a buyer of last resort, so to speak. The farmer still produces his normal output; but the government helps defray expenses/costs shouldered by the farmer by buying a certain percentage of what he produces. Thus, the infamous government cheese. Another common tool is to restrict importation of agricultural products into the country, thus assuring that farmers make a healthy profit (or at least break even) in what they produce. Example: the sugar industry. We in the US pay anywhere between 3 to 5 times the going rate as imported sugar is restricted (note: this may have changed inrecent years; I’m going on past recollection). A major argument for why governments (and pretty much every country in the world subsedizes ag. in some fashion or another) agricultural activity is rather simple. No one likes to be beholden to others when it comes to food. Makes for unhappy people at home if another country decides to cut them off. In a sense, therefore, ag. is a national security concern (true, that can be debated - but I’m just putting forth the argument that some people make). Another reason is also quite obvious. Agriculture is subsidized (or protected) for political reasons. Example: Japan. Arable land is quite scare (and expensive) in Japan, and farmers wield considerable political influence. So the Japanese politicians have a powerful constituency to contend with if they are to remain in power. The US is the most agriculturally productive country in the world. But this productivity has come about as a result of greater levels of energy/resources have been used in producing more food (mechanized farming, greater levels of irrigation, use of perticides/fertilizers, and ever increasing levels of oil to keep productivity high). Which has come at a cost - driving the cost of farming to the point where the family farmer can no longer afford to do so. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684/20 "2005-02-07T04:22:27Z")
American government agricultural policy could be byzantine, if simplified. I have known very intelligent people who have closely followed such policies and their effects. What they tell me is that there are essentially two FedAg policies: one that lends some actual support to the ordinary farmer, and another that is devoted to the fiscal health and financial stability of such bastions of entreprenuerial spirit as Archer Daniels Midland. If you don’t know who that is, stop reading and go find out. Nothing I have to say is as important as that. All we know about this particular threat is that it is a threat. Will the Republicans risk annoying the vanishingly small demographic of honest-to-gosh family farmers, or risk annoying a huge pile of corporate cash? A toughie. I fully expect at some point soon another photo op of Bush clearing the brush on his ranch, and relaxing with a chaw and some pork rinds while he burbles on about helping the family farmer. I don’t know how they’ll work in the part about how this farm subsidy bill supports our heroes in Iraq, but they will. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-cut-farm-subsidies/288684.md?page=2)