Crop insurance is probably not the first thing you want to talk about at a cocktail party. It isn’t sexy. However, it starts looking a lot prettier when common-sense reforms to crop insurance could save taxpayers billions of dollars. The Senate is currently debating its bloated farm bill. The Congressional …
Tweet this Where do food stamps come from? They come from taxpayers—certainly not from family farms. Yet the “farm” bill, a recurring subsidy-fest in Congress, is actually 80 percent food stamps and other government nutrition programs. The food stamps sweeten the farm deal for lawmakers, who admit that the combination …
Sometimes things go better together than you’d think, such as bacon and chocolate, or Hall and Oates, however, not all combinations work. For years, some Members of Congress have thought that food stamps and farm programs—while very distinct from each other—are a great political fit. As Senator Thad Cochran (R–MS), …
Slapping the word rural in front of a bunch of green subsidies does not mean they’re not subsidies. But that’s exactly what the Rural Energy Investment Act section of the Senate version of the farm bill legislation does. The legislation includes direct handouts and loan guarantees for advanced biofuels and …
Every five years or so, Congress reauthorizes recurring legislation known as the “Farm Bill.” The Senate and House Agriculture Committees are expected to mark up new farm bill legislation this week and next week, respectively. As Congress develops a new farm bill, here are a few things it should keep …
Congress is currently fighting over the future of U.S. farm programs. In 2011, taxpayers subsidized farmers to the tune of $10.4 billion in government payments. Imagine if the government had a way to increase payments to farmers while reducing taxpayer subsidies to zero. Such a policy exists. It’s called free …
According to a recent statement from the American Sugar Alliance: Over the past few weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released three key data points that deserve attention on Capitol Hill and are sure to deflate the Big Candy lobby’s attempt to gut U.S. sugar policy and outsource …
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just now released its score of the bill the Senate passed early this morning while everyone was celebrating the beginning of the New Year. Despite knowing for a long time that taxes would go up on all Americans today, the Senate waited until we technically went …
Got milk? The European Parliament sure does. European dairy farmers were in Brussels this week to protest proposed changes in dairy regulations. Protestors doused the parliament building with milk and capped off a rough 10 days for the European Union (EU) capital following a failed summit last week over the …
