Jamelle --
Perhaps it is important to subsidize farming....
6
He likes the welfare collectors known as defense contractors even better.
7
Could it be the complexion of the farmers give them a better hand with Trump? Farmers are mostly White People. It is not Rocket Science why Trump is willing to help them.
5
LOL. What a bunch of claptrap reporting. My husband farms. He got one cent per bushel of corn, not enough to drive to Ag Office to do the paperwork. I used to read the NYTimes for the truth, but clearly, Jamelle Bouie is clueless. Either understand your topic or find someone who does.
11
Add Trump's blatant racial patronage system to the paradoxes at the heart of the farmer ethos. Anti-immigrant nativists who need underpaid undocumented and foreign labor, rugged individualists who depend on federal subsidies, idealize the family farm but 75% of US agricultural production is by industrial farms. It's not indefinitely sustainable as that percentage increases - and there are rising numbers of former farmers.
6
Trump likes any welfare recipients that vote for him. It’s that simple.
2
Farmers are getting this subsidy to feed the Chinese. Not the USA.
5
I think what this boils down to is that the largest farmers/the agricultural businesses get most of the money while the small farmers are not getting enough. And yet it's the small farmers who suffer the most when companies like Monsanto find ways to ensnare them into buying their seed corn every season, when John Deere forces them into using tractors or other heavy equipment that only they can service.
Trump and the rest of the politicians in DC and in the statehouses support companies/constituencies with the most and loudest lobbyists. What do the rest of us get: highly processed food some of which is contaminated because of how its been raised. But it's okay because their intentions are good.
7
My sister and I own a small farming operation in Arkansas. Soybeans, rice, and corn that we cannot sell because the base is too low. These so called bailouts don't apply to us. And those subsidies, barely adequate, if at all. These article doesn't even touch on the effects of global warming, how crops are flooded out, replanted, flooded out again. We deserve a lot more. It angers me when I hear terms such as subsidized welfare for farmers in this column. One 100 acre farm I own is surrounded by a Argentine farmer and a lawyer who is trying to get a tax write off. Respect who feeds you.
12
It might surprise the author to learn that the meal on his dinner table, or restaurant table, did not originate in a supermarket or wholesale grocer. It started out at a farm somewhere.
These days, farming involves enormous investments. It is an industry clothed in the public interest, as if the ventures fail, its not just a problem for the investors. Its a problem for the public at large that likes to eat.
Absent some forms of public guarantees and supports, no one in his right mind would invest the financial resources and sweat to run a farm, given all of the risks involved. But so long as there is a public purpose in keeping America and others fed, farm operators cannot be expected to operate bearing all the risk. Right now, in Vermont, dairy farms are closing down due to low milk prices. Once these farms shut down, few would ever likely return.
11
One more way that Jamelle Bouie has it in for the electoral college as it doesn't meet his narrow focus on the maxim of fairness or justice. The oversized roll of the ag community is hardly a problem for the political culture when celebrity and oversized online media is in charge of the news cycle. Except when you think people are racists for voting with the values or the wallets depending on their conditions. which is what exactly what Bouie concluded in his Slate pieces back in the day.
7
Newsflash -- farmers produce the food eat and export as an essential part of our balance of payments. Welfare recipients -- regardless of the merit of their cases -- receive money from the 20% of the population that pays for 88% of the entire cost of our government.
Bouie is an odd add-on to the Times. He has a slant, and ca n't even back off when the discrepancy between farmers and welfare recipient is glaringly obvious.
Do all Times op-ed writers on contract have to be ideologues?
12
I am so tired of Farmers. They are not saints looking out for the good of their fellow man. They have chosen a risky profession but want someone else to pay in tough times. Then they resent others who get subsidies.
8
Farmers are some of the hardest-working people I know. Articles like this contribute to their alienation from the Democratic Party.
14
Are the Democratic candidates going out and talking to the farmers? And more importantly, listening to them?
Democrats can flip Wisconsin and Iowa in 2020. And in the long run, Democrats can flip Indiana, Kansas, Texas, and Georgia, and occasionally North Dakota and Montana as well.
8
The automakers repaid their loan with interest
No doubt the farmers will do the same
Maybe if asked?
That won’t go over very well
So probably not
9
Wonderful and best headline ever. I do not have to read the rest of the story. It is exactly right. Congrats.
2
Reading the article and comments just reminds me how divided we are. The farmers I know are honest, hard workers. The provide the food that people in the cities have no clue how to grow. We need them. Non-corporate farmers are hurting badly. Some is the result of recent weather but mostly they are hurting because of Trump's poor trade moves. Why do they still support him? Those in the cities would say lack of education. I think though it had more to do with them feeling excluded by the democrats and threatened by changes they see in our society. Thus they embrace a liar. I don't know the answer but know the problem firsthand. I am part owner of a corn and soybean farm in the mid west. I farm there but could never live there. Seattle here. Go figure.
5
There is one HUGE difference between farmers and the other so-called welfare recipients...farmers work and most others do not. Farming is not a "white only" occupation. There are many black and Hispanic farmers who earn the same subsidies. The total amount given to farmers is minuscule compared given to those who don't work, don't contribute to the system, produce little of value, and propagate the continuance of a failed system which encourages sloth. As far as Social Security and Medicare being "white programs", it's my understanding that those who earn an income, regardless of race or ethnic group, have those items deducted before they ever see a paycheck. In reality, this is the government giving back to the wage earner what was rightfully theirs to start with. This is a far cry from from a government hand-out for doing nothing. Additionally, how does excluding refugees and immigrants amount to being an implied racist? These programs are for citizens. I did not support Trump in 2016 (and I probably will not in 2020) but I cannot remember any statement, campaign ad, party plank, or any other public announcement promising a government for whites only. This is nothing but New York Times supported campaign gibberish aimed against a president that it hates.
8
I can’t find a farm near me and there are dozens that don’t have multiple $60k+ trucks sitting in their yards and I know they are hitting the welfare. Some aren’t even planting.
And lets not forget the micro-targeted deficit-exploding "tax cut", which doled out more money to developers and welfare states, while creating a large tax increase for the high tax states of the northeast.
You really have to wonder how the GOP lives with itself, going all-in for a guy who screws up a trade relationship, then hands out 20 billion a year to keep wealthy midwestern farmers with huge farms firmly in his corner. Talk about illegal campaign contributions; but this time, its our money he's using to pay off the victims of his bullying...Stormy got the last of Trumps money, before he moved to having the Federal treasury pay his hush money.
4
H.L. Mencken wrote these words in 1924:
"Let the farmer, so far as I am concerned, be damned forevermore! To Hell with him, and bad luck to him! He is, unless I err, no hero at all, and no priest, and no altruist, but simply a tedious fraud and ignoramus, a cheap rogue and hypocrite, the eternal Jack of the human pack. He deserves all that he suffers under our economic system, and more. Any city man, not insane, who sheds tears for him is shedding the tears of the crocodile.
No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limits of our endurance; when the going is bad he comes bawling for help out of the public till.
Has anyone ever heard of a farmer making any sacrifice of his own interests, however slight, to the common good? Has anyone ever heard of a farmer practicing or advocating any political idea that was not absolutely self-seeking -- that was not, in fact, deliberately designed to loot the rest of us to his gain? . . . .
Yet we are asked to venerate this prehensile moron as . . . the foundation stone of the state!"
Of course, that was then, and Trump and the giant corporate farmers are now, so things have grown much worse for the rest of us since he wrote this.
3
Yep. Well said.
1
The next time a white farmer complains about “handouts” to urban minorities, he should have his voting privileges revoked for life.
3
Let's see how well the family farmers embrace Sonny Perdue's new FFA program...you know, the Former Farmers of America...
1
Unlike most welfare recipients, farmers work from sun up to sunset 6 days a week.
8
So, to put this article succinctly, Trump awards billions in farm welfare mostly to large corporate megafarms, minimizes assistance to traditional farmers (less acreage), and chokes out minority farmers (just a few measly acres). Meanwhile, he not only taxes the lower and middle classes to pay for the subsidies but the increasing domestic costs of agricultural goods increasingly lowers their standards of living and, in the case of the poorest, starving them because they cannot afford the goods without food stamps. What magic! One day the bozo in the White House will pull a large bouquet out of his baggy pants pocket and say, "See, everybody's happy and well-taken-care-of." There just won't be as many to care about. What magic?
5
Farmer's working hard to feed Chinese pigs, supported by our subsidies.
Oh! Excuse me, Patriot Farmer's.
3
The columnist lost me in the first paragraph when he called Social Security welfare.
7
Farmers Are the hypocrites
1
Duh....Just who do you think stole 2016 with Russia and 70,000 worried voters?
I thought the ultimate goal was content of character rather than color of skin; yet Bouie regardless of subject consistently foments about the latter and it is a disservice to all.
5
1 Petrochemicals. 2 Industrial "farming" = oligarchy/ multi-national banks
Big Ag has a long history of subsidies/ welfare - and it goes hand in hand with politics/ lobbying, etc. This doesn't translate to the small guys in the NYT Picks section, this is different.
Also, the folks talking that think this is food, so subsidize away, ok fine, then subidize ALL the food producers - large, small, Monsanto farmers, organic farmers alike and equally.
Big Ag is one of the biggest lobby/ special interest this country has because people not around it still have this illusion it's mom and pop farms - it is NOT. These are giant corporations that don't care about food and feeding people, it's about profits.
The Trump Big Ag welfare was shameful, AND typical politics -- smart politics if you're a Trump 2020 strategist.
2
It's long been a point of contention [at least in California] family farms run by the Grandfather will divide "sub-plots" of his land among his family.. Even though Junior couldn't recognize a plow from a cow... Junior [under taxable law] is still considered a farmer and eligible for the same subsidies. Some of which can amount to $50,000 per "farmer" ... A family of "10 farmers" is $500k a year windfall.
Remember the "tea party" people demanding for the government to keep their hands off Medicare and Social Security? Unbelievable!
trump and his supporters LOVE welfare.
It's just any other than welfare for themselves that they hate.
4
Farming 50 acres of mixed crops ? Good luck...
This editorial is a jumble of politicized salad with a random sprinkle of statistical junk food tossed on top willy-nilly. Yes, Trump is horrible on any number of fronts and issues, including Obamacare, foodstamps and non-white immigration, but his farm subsidies are not racially constructed but a policy offset in response to imposed sanctions that impact farmers in existential ways. Democrats would be pound foolish to adopt this rhetorical pablum. Comparing percentage of black farm ownership in Mississippi and then jumping to reduced share of black subsidy percentage seems blatantly distorted when crop size s the determinant, not racial profiles. Of course, smaller farmers might need additional protections as a result of greater operational vulnerability. Splicing one subject into the other is concocted analytics. Without much better outreach and advocacy of family farmers, white and black both, democrats will get caught up again in senseless anti-farmer talking points and come up a bushel short at the polls. Not again! Wake up and support farmers unambiguously including the strong merits of subsidies when market is distorted from sanction tinkering! American farmers work their tails off and are foundational to this country and world!
3
Sorry, but the farmers I know are hard-working people who would be hard-pressed to accept any kind of handout—let alone one that gets them labeled “welfare recipients.” I understand the justified criticism of Trump’s absurd trade war that hurt the nation’s farmers, and his effort after the fact to make up their losses. If most of the funds have gone to large commercial operations rather than to the “family farmer,” then it’s “corporate welfare.” But to lump all farmers together, large and small, because their skin color happens to be white is the worst kind of racism—let alone lazy opinion-mongering.
4
It's too hot.
More farm welfare entitlements!
It's too cold.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Too much rain.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Too little rain.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Prices are too high.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Prices are too low.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Too many undocumented workers.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Not enough undocumented workers.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Tariffs are too high.
More farm welfare entitlements!
Tariffs are too low.
More farm welfare entitlements!
The moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars.
More farm welfare entitlements!
The moon is not in the Seventh House
And Jupiter does not align with Mars.
More farm welfare entitlements!
4
Great title, Jamelle! And so true...
The same people who rant and rave about socialists, left wing radicals and AOC are the same people are completely rely on the government and taxpayer money to work and survive.
3
This isn't the first time we have had this kind of farmer favoritism. I remember back in the 1980's, when laid-off Youngstown steelworkers started using soup kitchens. Simultaneously, we had to endure the whole Farm-aid, Heartland of America drivel. Yep, the guys that made the steel that beat Hitler and Tojo were tossed aside because their jobs weren't designated an official "American Way of Life."
(Cue the soundtrack for "The Natural," as Robert Redford pitches to his boy in the warm sunset of a Kansas wheat field.)
The important lesson should not be getting stuck in Trump's unfairness and lies, but admiring how he figures out who votes, what they want and then gives it to them. I will vote for anyone but Trump but the Democtatic possibles do not appeal to a consistently large enough base to assure a defeat of Mr. Tricky Trump. If that base were there, they would have overcome any reservations about Hillary and won the day on 2016. And this includes Bernie, who lacked the focus for a Democratic win in not urging his 'progressive' base to vote Clinton as a mature choice. Trumps base is made up of practical and grounded voters interested in getting ahead financially. Money has a sway in the US that values clarification will never replace, no matter how noble, and Trump and the Republicans know this well.
1
First in line a the farmer welfare trough: Sen. Chuck Grassley.
I hope farmers who did or did not receive Trump welfare in exchange for poorly thought out trade policies realize that their long-term prospects for selling overseas will diminish as long as Trump stays in office. China and others are finding new trade partners and there's no incentive for them to return to trading with U.S. farmers once the tariffs go away. Too much hassle; too much risk. There is no such thing as a free lunch... or farmer welfare.
4
Just for an example, our family farm has lost ~ $1,000,000 in revenue due to Trump's trade war. Our part of the subsidy will be around $28,000. Peanuts in comparison.
And, by the way, this Christian farmer did not and will not support Trump, for many reasons and not just my pocket book.
15
@Michael,
It’s good to know that you have common sense, and know a con man when you see one, not that an orange con man is hard to see. But you’re right, read the recent report issued by the Agriculture Dept, a majority of that money is going to the larger corporate farms. Which means farmers like you, suffer the most because in the end your not held harmless for Trumps trade war, the rich farms are. In fact like the rest of us tax payers, you’ll be left holding the debt bag, with no real assurances the Chinese will buy anything.
The U.S. is going to have to win back the trust of the Chinese, that the U.S. can be an uninterrupted soybean supply chain. The Chinese have gone to other soybean producing countries and are now doing business with them, by the way, those countries in South America for example need the cash, so they probably wouldn’t annoy the Chinese. This kind of selective welfare is also in the new federal budget, the federal government has decided that coal miners underfunded pensions that are endanger of being cut off because the company is bankrupt. That the taxpayer should fully fund and pay their pensions FOREVER. Yet that company had enough free cash that it could line the Pockets of senior management in the form of multi million dollar bonuses. Apparently CEOs get paid for running their company into the ground. So tax payers like you that didn’t vote for Trumpare left holding the bag for millions of dollars in pension money including healthcare costs
4
I have nothing against subsidies to farmers in difficult times, whatever the reason. We need to feed ourselves. But the payments seemed skewed to big agriculture, not the smaller farms, as indicated here and as reported by NPR several weeks ago.
And if we're going to bail people out, let's have compassion for those who are down on their luck and hungry. It's also another way to support farmers, because poor people buying food with SNAP money also subsidizes the farmers who grow it.
5
Borrowing the ancient Roman cultural elevation of the activity of farming to a special moral status is perhaps the greatest mistake in the formulation of American identity, a mistake that goes back to the country's founding, and has a lot to do with the country's embrace of slavery.
The most important thing to understand about the power of this mistake is that it grants a certain kind of person an easy instrument of moral self-congratulation, a way of setting themselves above and apart from their fellows, in their own minds.
People often perpetuate this mistake by complaining about the mechanization and corporatization of farming, but that ought to be welcomed (if it is well-regulated, of course). This is true for straightforward economic and material reasons: farming is a terrible business for a small family or an individual to undertake, and always has been, even going back to ancient Rome.
Ridding itself of the romanticization of farming would be a huge step forward for American society, not least because it would take another tool away from people vulnerable to manipulation through appeals to their chauvinistic self-regard, in defiance of reality, and justice. It's just a business, and being a farmer doesn't make anyone a hero.
2
1. Subsidizing farmers constitutes an unfair trade advantage, and violates the beloved but false tenants of Free Market fundamentalism.
2. Tariffs also violate those tenants.
3. 1 and 2 likely don't matter seeing as the Free Market label is intended to make the masses think one thing while the government actually does lots of things to manipulate the market to the advantages of the rich and powerful.
4. The term "farmer" is intended to make the masses think of some hard working guy, likely white. and his devoted family eeking out a humble living from the land. The yeoman farmer a la Thomas Jefferson. What could be more American? The correct term is Agri-Business. They are exceedingly large and rich corporations already sitting on piles of cash who stole that land from the humble farmers a few decades ago with the help of the banks who wouldn't roll over small farm loans.
5. Agri-Business already receives all sorts of government benefits via the US Tax Code.
6. 19 billion of your tax dollars just got transfered into the coffers of large corporations, a gift from one billionaire president to his crony capitalists friends.
7. Those subsidies are just a transfer of wealth and they won't terminate. The Chinese have sourced their soybeans from other countries so the American Agri-Business soybeans no longer have a market.
8. When the tariffs are lifted the American soybeans will be offered at lower prices on the market thanks to the Corporate Welfare.
9. Follow the money.
8
African-Americans make up less than 2% of all of the farmers in the US.
And you wonder why Trump likes farmers...
9
Maybe because they grow the food you eat?
4
@Andrew L
It isn't the small farmers getting the cash, it is the big farming corporations that get the cash. In addition to already getting subsidies, trump gave them even more subsidies.
Small farmers are being driven out, their land sold to the biggies. And small farmers don't grow enough to feed us. At best they have a niche in local markets.
2
@Andrew L
You do realize we import tons of food, this country doesn’t just feed itself, many of these mega farms that my tax dollar is bailing out, export much of what they grow. And by the way, we susbsidize farming in a time when that’s not needed any more. The law that they use is from the 1930s you know the dust bowl era. Back then, there was no government help for farmers then, if it didn’t rain, and your crops dried up in the field, tough. You went hungry, and your creditors cut you off. The republicans of the era, decided to let those farmers suffer, period. It wasn’t until Roosevelt came in and changed that, and the farm subsidy was created to help struggling farms, it was never meant to least in perpetuity. Farms don’t necessarily rely on just rain anymore, they have technology that tells them when harvest, plant, they rotate crops, along with many other practices that didn’t exist back in the 1930s. The family farm is dying thing, because mega farms put them out of business, or a president ruins their business. Many farmers aren’t getting in subsidies what they would be making if they had a soybean market. You should read the adept of Agriculture’s report on where these billions in farm subsidies are going.
1
I find it very sad to not only see the farmers, but the people who live in the rust belt, who actually believe in the snake oil salesmen of Donald Trump. It reminds me of the Burt Lancaster movie Elmer Gantry. I watch old movies with my grandsons, they ask: Why do you like these old movies? I reply: Because things haven't changed, and it's important for you to see that something 60 yrs ago still holds true. I can't believe that Trump will get anything better than what the TPP agreement in 2017. These people hitched their wagon to this huckster, Trump, and went thru all of this fiasco and won't gain what they've lost. And, still they don't see it.
10
@Dan O Keep in mind that the movie, "Elmer Gantry," is based on the novel of the same name, by Sinclair Lewis, a well-established writer. He wrote a number of novels true to some of the socio-economic environment of his day.
1
@Dan O
There another movie worth watching is called “All The King Men” the the lead character is a politician, not unlike Trump. Elmer Gantry is an accurate reflection of people, and their gullibility. And an awesome movie. I just watched Lancaster in a movie called “The Scalp Hunters” and a movie that is the complete opposite called “The Sweet Smell Of Success”
1
My farming son received a few pennies per bushel of corn. He farms his 120 year old family farm of 120 acres, half of his wheat crop rotted in the field due to rain and mud and had to leave 50 acres of soybeans in the field due to a breakdown, rain and mud. He is too small to collect much of anything since the 'aid/welfare' is geared toward the large, corporate farms.
96
@Margaret,
That’s right, Trump doesn’t care one iota for your son, and by the way, your son was the whole purpose behind Roosevelt passing the farm subsidy bill, during the dust bowl. The idea was to help farmers that had no rain, or as in your sons case too much rain, because in the 1930s farming practices aren’t what they are today. But your son, because of the natural disasters he’s faced he should be subsidized what he would have made, had floods, mud, not destroyed his crops. This is the what government is supposed to do, not cater to the rich, corporations, then tell me and you, that there’s just no money....
20
@Margaret Everything in America is geared toward the large, corporate whatever.
22
Thank you Mr. Bouie for finally telling it the way it is.
After years of Republicans deriding poor people on food stamps as "welfare queens," we now have the most expensive welfare queens of all: farmers.
Trump's tariffs managed to kill profits for soybean and other farmers, so he is just buying them off, paying for their votes.
Any you know what? Farmers will vote for Trump again.
6
@David I hope you realize that it's big agriculture, cash -rich, corporate agriculture that collects this "welfare," not your average family farmer of 100 acres.
2
Trump's cynical decision to compensate farmers for their losses in his stupid trade dispute with China may sound like compassion for the producers of our food.
As Mr. Bouie notes. "But “our farmers” isn’t inclusive of the whole. The vast majority of payments have gone to white farmers, with large landowners the greatest beneficiaries. It’s true that most American farmers are white. But disparities exist nonetheless. In Mississippi, for example, 14 percent of farms are run by black operators, but those farmers have received 1.4 percent of the aid that has been distributed in the state."
Rather, the net effect of these farm subsidies will be for the country's non-farmers to view farmers, especially the larger landowners and corporate farmers, as the new version of the "welfare Cadillac."
2
Yes, the danger is not really Trump, who is too scatter-brained to do much real damage. The danger is that people who do know how to exploit the system have seen that it is possible to game it if you only press the right buttons. Brazenly seek to divide the country and you will prosper is the lesson they have learned.
4
Trump has always been able to depend on lying to get out of a jam. And true to form we've seem plenty of that in his administration, especially lately. Then their is the bullying. And when all else fails he buys off those he needs or those he has offended so they stop causing trouble.
As President he's done all that but he is more hampered by the office than he is in Trump Tower, but still he has found a way to buy-off those he needs: “We’re signing a monster,” he said. “A big, beautiful monster. Forty to 50 billion dollars to our farmers.”
1
Having lived in rural Wisconsin for most of my life, I learned a few things about farmers. A lot of them are good people, but a lot of them, probably a majority, are complete and utter hypocrites, bigots and think they are somehow blessed by God, and therefore "special". In Wisconsin, farmers pay lower property tax rates on land that generates income than someone who is merely living there. They pay no sales taxes on anything used for the "farm". They pay no fuel taxes, they are exempt from most OSHA regulations. They are also the biggest employer of undocumented immigrants in rural areas. They claim to dislike government but are the first with their hands out for government money when commodity prices drop. They really are the worst sort of hypocrites, utterly convinced that their own occupation is more important than anyone else's, deserving of billions of dollars in subsidies while looking down their noses at their own customers in urban areas, and complaining that no one works as hard as they do, although crop farmers about half of the year off. Meanwhile, they blindly support Trump who devastates their markets and their future while mouthing empty platitudes. I can't write the words here that are best used to describe them since sick, pathetic and deplorable don't really cut it.
7
Correct! Grew up in farm country. Whine. Whine. While not admitting to the advantages already in place. And on top of all that, more money aka Trump. Why should they change? They’ve been successfully working the system and living off of the rest of us for years!
Because of his inability to conduct foreign affairs, sent tariffs through the roof on China’s products, Americans pay more for those products. WE pay the tariff that he’s trying to convince his following that China is paying! By him not knowing how to conduct any business whatsoever, china refused to buy our agriculture. That gave him the “opportunity” to take a multi billion from the government as stipends to the farmers. I do feel for our farmers. I get it, and I don’t want any of them to think that I don’t care. But looking at what trump has “accomplished,” he has Americans paying multiple times for HIS ineptness! Sure, he promised the farmers to take care of them. He also promised to take care of ALL Americans. He also promised “better health insurance for all!” He has nothing but empty promises for us ALL. He definitely has a lot of lies buzzing around in his head that always end up getting spit out. Worst president ever.
3
Most farmers are white and vote Republican, so it's not considered "welfare" in the eyes of the GOP.
4
Could it be that farmers work for a living?
4
@Southern Boy
So do many other people work for a living, many at 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet.
I am tired of the lies that most people don't work hard, they do.
Southern boy, I would have liked for you to have to do my job for a living. Many don't manage a week. Maybe you would last a day.
1
Lots of comments that don't see the difference between the routine subsidies that farmers have received for years, and the subsidies that farmers have received recently for Trump's elective and ill thought out trade war. That many are too thick to understand the difference does not bode well for our nation.
1
I understand. The persistent welfare state of agri-business has benefited from the Farm Bill for years. Partly because many still have image of small farmer in their minds. The agri-business group, including chemical companies (fertilizer, seed, etc.), now benefit even more due to Trump’s buying of this constituency. They know it; would prefer the rest of us didn’t.
Trump's 29 billion dollars to farmers is a payoff for supporting him. Who can interpret it as anything less? Obviously, farmers are vital to our survival and well being but does that make them a special group beyond any careful consideration of how money is spent? Note, too, that the first rounds of payments to farmers was not directly authorized by Congress. Instead, like his "big beautiful wall", it was paid out by re-directing funds through real or imagined presidential authority.
We should be suspicious of any group in our society where debate and careful dialog cannot reach. Colleges, with their sky high tuition rates, represent another group all but beyond ordinary debate. They are doing a good thing, educating the next generation, so we just have to pay up? And pay up again in terms of crippling a rising generation with debts? I doubt it. No one has come forward with a good explanation of why college should cost three to six times what it did a generation ago, even when the figures are adjusted for inflation.
If Trump could pay off every group that supports him with federal dollars, your tax dollars, he could stay in office for life. Not good.
5
@Doug Terry ..."Who can interpret it as anything less?"....Maybe it is partial compensation for what farmers have lost do to his stupid China tariffs.
Oh yeah? As a small family farmer, I got ONE PENNY per bushel of corn as my subsidy. I'm still losing money on my farm, and I own the land!!
63
@elleng
Do you receive any tax breaks on your land (rated agriculture, vs. commercial or industrial or residential)? Assuming your income tax, adjusted, is below poverty line, do you receive welfare or free lunches at school for children or food stamps? Do you receive subsidized loans for equipment or supplies such as tractor or plow or barn or fertilizer or feed or seed or crop insurance? Any capital gain tax encumbering your land? Housing or mortgage aid? What other aid might be available to help you and other farmers? Figuring a penny per bushel of corn as a subsidy, did you receive any other actual money in selling your crop? I'm pretty unfamiliar with the economics of farming and your post started me thinking about the subject.
7
@elleng Your crime is that you are a small farmer, not a corporate farmer. They are the ones getting the benefits. I hope you aren't planning to vote for Trump.
15
@elleng
Grow POT!
11
Farmers produce food. End of sentence
36
@rationality Most farmers produce food with tons and tons of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and more.
No wonder the UK doesn't want any of our agricultural products.
54
@rationality All farmers produce food, not just white farmers or large corporate farmers. But whatever they produce, buying votes is buying votes. Donald Trump’s tariffs have trashed many industries. He has no concern for the damage done to them.
66
@rationality
Nope. Farmers produce commodities not food. Most soybean and corn that's produced is not eaten, but instead turned into plastics or ethanol. Lots of corn is processed into high fructose corn syrup that is unnecessarily added to processed foods leading to all kinds of health issues.
Farmers are not heroes. They are people working a job just like everyone else.
169
This is an utterly weak and unsupported OpEd essay. Our author and the Grist article that he cited fail to establish that the black farmers that he mentions were similarly affected as the farmers who’ve received payments to alleviate sales lost from the trade dispute with China. What crops were affected, and to what extent? How to file a claim for payment? How to price the case? What was the criteria for payment?
My own research suggests payment went to the largest producers by volume, and then by acreage, in two rounds of payments. Both of these are reasonable criteria. They would however also both favor the largest farmers, most of whom are probably white.
Both the author and the editorial board need to go back, examine the data, and re-do this essay. If similarly situated black farmers got passed over (same volume, same acreage, same crops) then prove it. If the method of calculation is different from prior payments to alleviate losses from a trade dispute, then show that too.
But don’t just drop naked assertions and call yourself finished. This essay gets a D-minus for failure to prove what it assets.
6
Like the hammer who sees the a nail everywhere, Mr. Bouie (and Charles M. Blow) sees RACISM everywhere.
Everywhere.
All this racism and yet no mention of President Obama's almost Trillion (Trillion!!!) dollar 2014 Farm Bill? Still, American has always favored farmers, big Agriculture, etc. over poor folks. This is not news.
This Black man has grown weary of this lazy, reductive vision.
4
@profwilliams ... "American has always favored farmers, big Agriculture, etc. over poor folks."....Farm subsidies lower the cost of food. Are you suggesting that poor people don't need to eat?
1
Mr Bouie , please stop the Hate Speech. It’s time to Move On.
7
@Common ground to quote a famous resident of California: "Just the facts mam."
I work in international transportation and Trumps trade war has effected me to the tune of $27,000 last year. I ask where is my welfare check Republicans?
Who pays for 29 billion in subsidies to farmers in addition to the billions they were previously getting? In the main, it is voters in predominantly Democratic states, the much hated coastal "elites". Hey, the money has to come from somewhere, right?
Because of the warped, undemocratic input of the Electoral College and the disproportionate, undemocratic arrangement of the U.S. Senate, the farm belt states don't have to get along with the rest of the country, they can thumb their noses at moderate and progressive voters and still get the money they want, often in the form of checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars for large, industrial scale farm operations. We have asymmetrical political/cultural warfare in America: we give to them, they shoot back at us. Is this a great country or what?
Until democracy in America is tipped into a better balance between actual and pretend democracy, we will continue to have a mess on our hands.
7
@Doug Terry ....The only way coastal elites don't benefit from farm subsidies is if they don't eat.
@W.A. Spitzer
Those large agri-culture businesses will still grow food for us w/o all those subsidies. So why should we give them more profit? All it is is a subsidy for the rich, more of our money going to make them richer.
My aunt and uncle ,New York dairy farmers along with 40 other family farms in northern New York have lost their milk market. There is no Trump help and they would rather just work. Chinas imports of dairy are half thanks to the trade war. The Chinese know we have the safest food supply in the world.
2
For the most part "farmers" are big business, despite what the name implies. Of course Trump's going to like them better.
3
Farming will be easy to automate. At which point farmers’ real need for welfare begins.
1
Ah well, the sun has risen on another day and another NYT opinion columnist has blamed another situation on race. I am not surprised.
Contrary to the writer's assertion, Medicare is available equally to all Americans who meet the age requirement. The program is no more associated with whiteness than with blackness or any other form of ___ness.
Similarly, welfare payments are given to people who have no work. By contrast, the farmers had ample work until the federal government deprived them of the ability to work by costing them their markets. These payments to farmers are not welfare - they compensation from the Trump administration for damage done by the Trump administration.
4
@Quiet Waiting
Well some truth there, that trump's actions are hurting them.
The other part you got wrong, most people who get welfare work. But wages are too low in so many jobs, while the rich pocket the money that should be paid in wages.
Trump prefers corparate farmers even more than family farmers.
And why wouldn't he?
Facts don't matter. Truth doesn't matter. Trump's supporters just need to feel that he is on their side.
This era of truthiness affects democrats too but to a lesser degree.
So Trump is subsidizing White-owned Corporate Farms while letting the little guy and Farmers of color fall by the wayside. More Trump 101 in action.
@alan ...Losses do to Trumps stupid China tariffs are proportional to the acreage being farmed. Subsides are proportional to the acres being farmed. Why is that unreasonable?
Will the wealthy be required to work too?
After all, if you're going to require the poor to work to collect their puny benefits, the wealthy should be required same. Because we know the wealthy are sucking far more out of the government teat than the poor.
So all you Kushners, Trumps, Buffets and Gates children of the world, you better put those noses to the grindstone!
NO MORE FREELOADING!!!
4
It is funny to think the manly ranchers and farmers in the USA are experts whiners and welfare recipients. They are perhaps the most entitled group in the nation. These free-market capitalists insist that the federal government guarantee profits through subsidies, but scorn any person of color who needs help to survive. And they all call themselves Christian.
8
And they swear to whoever their god is, that they’re not socialists or communists. What a laugh.
@james doohan...Whoa. Farmers didn't ask for the profits to be slashed by Trump's stupid China tariffs.
This column nicely illustrates why I have come to hate politics. I don't think for a minute that policy is dictated by a careful evaluation of societal needs and reasonable, practical solutions. Policy is dictated by political expediency. The Republican party needs to make it seem like they are fulfilling the desires of their base so they can serve their true masters: the rich. They have to play this game because there aren't enough rich people to get them elected. But Democrats play the same game. Here in Seattle, the heavily left-leaning city council continually blames Amazon and landlords for societal problems that directly or indirectly affect us all, and in many cases aren't even caused by Amazon or landlords. The solutions proposed are also completely unmoored from practical reality. Why is this the case? Because they operate from the same playbook as Republicans: political expediency. It's a lot easier to get elected asking Amazon and landlords to cover all the costs than it is asking the public at large to pay the costs. And before sending me your angry responses, I do think Republicans are worse than Democrats, but I'm getting really sick of the argument that I should vote for the lesser of two evils. It would be nice to have an opportunity to vote for something that isn't evil.
2
The chauvinism described in the article was clear and present in another article today. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/opinion/puerto-rico-earthquake-power.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Puerto Rico was promised by Congress to receive a similar amount in aid for reconstruction and the funds have not yet reached Puerto Rico. Yet the farmers on the mainland have already gotten their funds.
What a disparity! And clearly, the funds to the farmers came from 45's own trade war with China. Once again an "emergency" of chaos caused by 45 so he could then come to the rescue and solve it.
Anything for a vote my friends. Anything at all.
2
"Forty to 50 billion dollars to our farmers.”
In reality the translation is:
A trade war is not easy to win and I lied about it. Second thing is, I desperately want your votes so I am buying your votes with this handout because I lied to start with.
Evangelicals out there, ever read: Thou shalt not lie.
3
I'm not sure how Mississippi was able to give only 1.4% of payments to black farm operators when 14% of farms there have black operators. Quite a trick. Perhaps they only sent payments to the largest farms. But I believe the racism and hypocrisy of the program is Jamelle's point. Plus the inherent political hay that is made by red state rural voters happy, potentially keeping such a system in place and racist.
3
@Steve W ......."Perhaps they only sent payments to the largest farms. "......Losses caused by Trump's stupid China tariffs are directly proportional to the acreage being farmed. Farm payments by USDA are directly proportional to acreage being farmed. Sorry if it doesn't fit your narrative, but the payments are color blind.
Mr. Bouie, the problem with your opinion is that it mentions "whiteness" too often. Moreover, you do it in an attacking and negative way.
I, as a white person, take exception to that. Being white is never going to be a shame, regardles of how a sense of guilt is being forced down our throats by the party you support.
8
@Calgarian
Mr Bouie is simply following his marching orders of the editors who insist that every social or economic topic discussed on these "pages" be racialized. This isn't the news journal it once was. On the other hand, it's still better than anything associated with Murdoch; eg, WSJ et al. Such are the times we live.
2
@Calgarian cross-border racial solidarity and fragility. How apropos.
Trump is terrified to become a private citizen where his crimes will land him in jail - his treason possibly for life.
He is the master of the rigged system, and his laser focus on the electoral votes since the day after his election - going only to blood red venues and ruthlessly tearing into anyone who differs in appearance or views, layered with the most outlandish lies - all in plain sight, is just another version of his Oval Office crimes.
So why is anyone surprised - he provides welfare, I mean tax cuts to the 1%; gets federalist, i.e., evangelical religious wingnut judges supersonic approval thru rigged hearings, gets rid of an AG who for a microsecond didn't agree with him and puts in the worst criminal Roy Cohn protector as his replacement.
Farm subsidies began in the 30's during the Dust Bowl & Great Depression. But the majority goes to the big corporate farms (80% to the top 10%) .
50 people on the Forbes 400 are farmers - why should they get subsidies?
And the mass production is causing disease, destruction of the soil and water supplies, and is cruel to animals.
Farm subsidies block global trade. Obama's TTIP would have lowered trade barriers between EU and US - and resulted in a 5% growth of GDP (vs Trump's 1.9%)
Sadly bundling in Food Stamps (SNAP) to get urban political support ends up harming the poor - it becomes the place to reduce dollars - Trump's depraved viciousness is focused on the poor and disabled - read that as non-voters.
Best summation of trump’s political strategy in any other NY Times article.
The United States government spends around $80 billion per year on food stamps alone. And Trump is a racist for sending $19 billion to farmers?
2
@Timothy, SNAP spending in 2019 was $58.3 billion. I found that number in ten seconds using a Google search.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap
2
@Timothy
That is paid to people who work, but are not paid a living wage. We subsidize rich corporations by not forcing them to pay decent wages while they rake huge profits. And then those corporations little to no taxes.
If wages were paid so that a family could live on, we wouldn't need to help those people. But the opposite happens, we give our money to the rich while they refuse to pay people decently.
Keep supporting the rich and the money we give to them. And expect to also shell out money for people who are not paid enough. That is the republican motto. Feed the rich, starve the poor.
A lot of our food is imported or have folks forgotten. I don't see the feds shoving money and any other realm that has been hurt by Trump's stupidity and a good many have been
"In a national state, there is socialism. It is either socialism for the masses or socialism for the elite." In the US debt is socilalized among the masses and wealth is socialized among the elite.
2
This is the big unspoken truth about red America that none of them are aware of or want to address. The fact is that The San Francisco Bay area has a larger GDP than 43 American states. Another fact is that the American agricultural sector is very heavily subsidized directly and indirectly and despite all these subsidies it still can't turn a profit. And the truth behind these facts and the reality that Red America seems unaware of Is that it's increasingly brains over brawn. Despite Trump, despite their protestations to the contrary, Red America is headed to the ash heap of history. This is the hard truth ww will have to deal with over the next 30 years.
3
Trump never does anything that won’t benefit Trump. His entire term in office has been a vicious circle of actions that clearly lead back to him and his zeal to be re-elected. Sadly his base blindly follows him and his every word. His media outlet, Fox News, blindly parrots his words and attempts to gild his image. Farmers just happened to be the latest pawns in Trump’s job: Not to enhance the lives of our citizens, but to enhance Trump’s image, through lies, intimidation, favoritism and opportunism. So sad.
1
Absolutely frightening to see this comments section and those who make a distinction between "makers" and "takers." It's a bogus distinction.
People who need help need help. End of sentence.
Soon, we'll be hearing how Jesus helped those who helped themselves . . . and our Christian nation ought to do the same. Find those words coming from the mouth of Jesus, and I'll vote for DJT.
2
@WestHartfordguy Jesus NEVER said those words and they are not in the Bible. I think the quote is from Benjamin Franklin, who was , at best, a nominal Christian (meaning that he was Ok with going to church as long as it benefited his business). In fact, the message of the Gospel is that God helps those who are incapable of helping themselves.
Where do these farm subsidies emanate from? Oh yes, disproportionately from blue states. Red states are the largest socialized income distribution class in our nation, (next to corporations and the wealthy who don't pay their fair share in taxes either). Blue state federal tax dollars are given to red states to bail out their depressed economies. The redder the state, the bigger the federal tax dole to their pockets from us real money makers and taxpayers in blue states. The more you know, the sicker this show gets.
5
Bad analogy
Trump should be called out for racist behavior and the proposed change to food stamp rules is mean spirited (although it’s reasonable to ensure people who are truly able to work are looking for work)
The advantage of guaranteed basic income is the government can get out of the business of deciding who needs money or food stamps and also hopefully reduce the number of government employees
But, don’t equate agriculture price support systems for welfare. We all benefit from stable food prices.
@Prudence Spencer’s
Why not? It is welfare. Welfare they don't need (the large agri-culture farms).
These subsidies are not going to the poor small farmers, but to the rich.
Jamelle Bouie is far too young to understand why Trump seems to like farmers better than other blocs. He likes Farmers because they will increasingly get wealthier from Government gimmes; perhaps more so than the Space Cadets. Trump gave farmers far more in cash than they lost these past few years. Farmers are very sophisticated, they got that way because of ethanol and FUEL ethanol that could and can be made cheaper than some federal and state payoffs when blended with filthy gasolines and oils of many kinds. I would not be shocked to learn the Trump organization owns farms that got and may yet get more of the bulk of cash aid from the Federal government - or some hidden ownerships that no one could ever find. This would not be illegal in that he does not own or control such interests. Ask any smart politician - most know how to gain by tacking their own personal 'interests' into the mix. It is the American way - I call it Domestic Financial Nepotism (DFN). It functions much like American Imperialism (AI?) Americans were never stupid enough to take over nations by colonizing and/or enslaving their populations. Americans simply planted their corporations in the most lucrative areas of the world and took the lion's share of the profits and split them with policymakers and other more localized political interests who toed the line. Far less cruel than the British, French and Spanish colonists of earlier times who now follow the American way - at least for the moment.
1
The government is shot thru with special treats for protected groups. Grazers are one group. The Taylor act set the fees for grazing animals on public land in 1929. They haven’t gone up since. The biggest reason inner city poor get welfare is to keep them from rioting. It’s cheaper than sending in the guard. All of us belong to special interest groups. It’s how the government “works “. Now that corporations are people it makes it even easier for them to influence things.
As with everything else he does to BUY VOTES WITH MY TAX DOLLARS, Trump is subsidizing farmers for the havoc he has created with his fake trade wars. Do they realize that these are THEIR TAX DOLLARS TOO - and that they are paying themselves out of their own pockets?
Effectively, Trump is holding our farmers hostage to his policies and buying them off with taxes from America's middle class. The rich aren't paying anything anyway - they get a free ride in all this.
It's a PONZI SCHEME and Trump is playing Madoff while making millions for himself and his buddies that YOU are paying for. How gullible can Americans be?
4
So, you want farmers to go out of business because DJT picked a trade war fight, rather than negotiate a treaty like a normal President? Or is it that all forms of welfare should be equal? Or is that that everyone should get farm welfare equally? Or is it that DJT pursues racist policies? That should come as no surprise to anyone. Farmers have been subsidized for generations especially as we have fewer and fewer of them. That's tough lobby to stop. Write about subsidizing defense contractors, it's a much better and more deserving target.
1
@Mark - as I’m sure you’re aware, family owned, food producing farmers continue to go out of business. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the bulk of these subsidies are mostly benefitting large corporate farms. Regardless, like you, I would love to see the NYT turn it’s attention to taxpayer welfare of the defense industry, but I’m not holding my breath. Instead, I’ll just fume about why it is that our legislators manage to reach across the aisle to increase an obscenely large budget by more than what the Administration requested! It almost makes me physically sick to know that working families (yes WORKING) of four are expected to struggle and be thrown off food assistance, while defense contractors and there employees live very, very comfortably. I know from personal experience, as my grandson is making upwards of $80K a year at his FIRST and ONLY job ever (never worked in HS, or college) working for Boeing. Did he work hard in school...maybe, (not the time for the school dumbing down discussion) but is he really so much more deserving than others? Yes, I’m old enough to understand the way things work and to know that money rules, but I don’t have to like it.
1
It is impossible to feel any sympathy for farmers as long as they support Donald Trump, the man responsible for thier economic distress.
1
So, Trump is using my tax dollars to bribe red farm states to give him their electoral votes. I'd prefer that he knock off his tariffs, which have cost other industries their jobs.
2
This why Trump will be re-elected.
The Dems have no message for farmers that have not benefited from the current administration, nor a message for folks that are not farming that are in dire circumstances in Ohio or West Virginia or a big part of the nation.
Until they grow past East and West coast liberalism, they will stay out of presidency and the Congress. I’m hoping it’s no longer than 2024, given the chaos we are in, but it might be later, depending on the miss-steps by the left. It’s their battle to lose in 2020 or 2024. Or later.
2
@Vechre - so, was it East and West coast liberalism that caused Democrats to vote overwhelmingly to increase the Defense budget last year? The sooner we stop falling for partisan talking points and stop calling each other out, the sooner we’ll all be able to hold ALL politicians accountable. It’s obvious that they’re smarter than we are because they just keep saying the same stuff and we just keep buying into it at our own expense and peril.
I was highly suspicious of the $5 billion savings cited for cutting SNAP, since dividing it by the number of adults (about 700k) that would lose benefits led to a number of almost $600 per month per person over a full year. Now you have to have a household of at least four people to get into the territory where you can even get that amount maximum per month, let alone what people actually get based on income etc., and the people affected by the change are by definition without dependents. Looking at the NPR article linked though, the $5 billion estimate is over FIVE YEARS. So they are projected to save in five years about one quarter of the cost of the farm subsidies that have been going less than one year, just to put that all in perspective.
Don't forget, adding new requirements and restrictions on government benefits only saves money if those requirements are enforced, and of course it costs money to enforce those requirements. So I'd say that $5 billion over five years is still probably an overestimate of the net savings. This administration has not really been known to overstate things in support of a previously-held belief though.
3
The largest part of modern farming whether corporate or not is curently dependent on huge quantities of mostly non-renewable resources, namely the hydrocarbons that are everything from tractor fuel to the feed stock for nitrogen fertilizers that juice production. Ultimately, the long term future of farming depends on converting farming (already happening in many places) to more sustainable production methods on farms large and small, smaller farm to table operations, better logistics for transport of farm products to eliminate food waste, etc. Perhaps more farm subsidies for that transition would be a good thing.
5
I grew up as a farm boy, and many farmers and ranchers have been my lifelong friends. They are all people I admire greatly.
And before me, they were my farmer dad’s lifelong friends in overlapping generations.
My dad would often comment, from way back in time, “why do they vote Republican, they’re voting against their own interests?”
My friends probably do the same today. A clear majority of the local media feature FOX NEWS and right wing commentators.
To a person, they would hate Trump. And he would have absolutely no interest in them.
He’s all about getting their votes, they’re all about the so-called Republican ethic of self reliance.
Self-reliance, while working the land of their great grandparents and with ongoing assistance from government farm subsidies. And even these subsidies should be clarified, they would very likely not need those subsidies were it not for the monopolistic practices of large corporate farms.
6
"In Mississippi, for example, 14 percent of farms are run by black operators, but those farmers have received 1.4 percent of the aid that has been distributed in the state."...Agriculture payments to farmers are based on acreage not on numbers. When it comes to farm subsidies (1995-2012) of the largest 500 recipients more than 25% were located in Mississippi, meaning there are a lot of very large farm operations in Mississippi compared to the rest of the country.
2
It's not like democrats can ignore agriculture either. They shouldn't this year.
Food programs like SNAP may be a compromise between rural and urban needs. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois would know more about balancing upstate/downstate wants and desires. So would other senators from states similar to Illinois with a blue/red urban/rural divide.
I'm guessing this is not about people's welfare as much as it is about things like: two US senators per state despite population, the electoral college, and the US food dollar going more and more to eating out or having food delivered in places like New York City. Amazon and Walmart may be just as big players in the ag/food industrial complex as say seed companies or families with prime large acreage farmland somewhere in the corn/soybean belt.
Fun with lists:
Top 10 ag producing states by cash receipts in order: California, Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Indiana
https://www.ers.usda.gov/faqs/#Q1
2
Trump supporters all have their hands out in one way or another.
9
Read your Bible and Thomas Jefferson. People who work the land (and agribusiness executives and gentleman horse breeders) are blessed by God and slave-owning political theorists. People who cannot make ends meet working at Walmart or laid off auto workers or school teachers are merely deadbeats who lack self-reliance and are probably often people of color and bad parents as well. Well, of course, that's silly. If it is, why do our policies reflect this silliness? Are we breathing in too many ethanol fumes?
6
Trump only likes white farmers in red states. He has a strong preference for rich white farmers in red states. While most people clutch the myth of the individual farmer working the land, the fact is that most farms are huge industrial operations; the farmer myth has, in reality, been dead for a long time.
Trump works assiduously to damage blue states and persons of color wherever and whenever he can.
And there we are. So much for "One Nation."
7
Folks, the auto bailout was ~$81B. It was far more than then farm bailout. Take a moment and check the factoids.
1
And it was paid back. In fact, GM and Chrysler are doing very well because of it.
6
@TDurk
Republicans own that bailout also.
O'bama came into office to clean up the economic nightmare left by Bush 2. The bailout was already in motion when O was inaugurated.
Check the factiods
I do know of some Midwestern farmers who made more money this year due to these payments. Don't worry, they deserve help, other people don't. You know, they feed you (never mind that it's mostly cattle and hogs that you may or may not eat).
2
I'm a farmer living in Montana. Federal assistance to farmers has saved my family's farm over and over again, as it has every every other farm in the country, if only the farmers running them would be honest about it. The fact is, farmers are price takers and the big corporations that either buy what farmers are selling or sell farmers what they need to raise a crop are price setters. It is an exploitative relationship. Because of it, without government assistance, farmers would go broke. Despite this, I am outraged that Trump is cutting welfare for the poor and increasing it for farmers. Warren and Sanders both understand how unfair all of this is, and both of them have good ideas about fixing it for both the poor and farmers.
13
@Wade Sikorski - thank you for your honesty and humanity!
But above all, he likes corporations and the super rich.
2
There was not "anxiety" among Trump voters. The shock of the 2016 campaign was for the Paul Ryans of the Republican Party. What Trump demonstrated was that the Republican base did not care about the deficit and they did not oppose government benefits. What they opposed was the "wrong" people getting those benefits. They believe that they are entitled and others, mainly minorities, are for reasons owing to bigotry are not.
8
I mean, at least farmers are WORKING.... to feed us.
2
To build on this idea of welfare chauvinism, you could also look at some other things. Take the home mortgage interest deduction, which can also be applied to a second home. Who gets the bulk of that? Federal insurance subsidies for shorefront property as well as liberal handouts to rebuild after a hurricane or flood. The ability of corporations and financial institutions to write off the interest on debt. This goes to affluent people and shareholders, who are also largely white. There's a lot of material on this subject.
2
The Mills brothers...definitely not farmers...”You always hurt the ones you love, the ones you shouldn’t hurt at all...heck of it is, they’ll vote for him again!
2
Well you see.... farmers are still working... TO FEED US.
26
@Mystery Lits
No, today's subsidies are not going to farmers
working to feed us." They are going to corporate farmers and factory farmers with huge soybean, wheat, and corn production, along with feedlots. And then there is subsidized crop insurance and government payouts for farmers to leave land fallow (CPR).
The small family farmers didn't get the money the "big guys" got it. The family farmers are the ones who are suffering the most and whose farms go under. But, they will probably vote for trump again, thinking he will help them. Too bad, he won't.
89
@Mystery Lits Farmers are working to generate a commodity they can sell, often overseas. Many of these farms are owned by large corporations. Farmers aren't heroically toiling to feed us, they are trying to make money just like everyone else, they just chose farming as their profession.
51
@Mystery Lits
No. My family in Iowa has no idea what their corn and soybeans are used for. All they know is that it is not edible.
47
I grow very tired of the opinion when the writer feels the need to use race as the foundation of the argument being put forth. Not everything is motivated by race.
1
@J Clark Oh it is when dealing with anything Trumpian
At least farmers put in a hard days labor in exchange for any government subsidies they may receive. Unlike welfare and food stamp recipients they actually do have to work for a living.
1
There are a lot of small businesses with hard-working owners and employees that do not get the help that farmers get. Even under normal circumstances, when special tariffs are not an issue, farmers are heavily subsidized. In some cases they are subsidized with our tax dollars even when their products are harmful to the public (e.g. corn that ends up sweetening sugary drinks) or when their farming practices pollute the soil and water. And as others have pointed out, a lot of the money goes not to small family farms, but to big ag. On top of all this, there seem to be a rather large number of farmers who are opposed to government help for anyone else. Although I am sure there are farmers worthy of our respect and support, the overall situation is not going to generate warm feelings toward farmers in general.
1
Trump Likes Farmers Better Than Some Other Welfare Recipients......
Me too.
1
We're told we can't afford $4.2 billion in food stamps over five years; how can we afford $19 billion in subsidies to private businesses?
5
You probably didn’t hear or recall Trump’s explanation: it’s the CHINESE who are paying us billions in tariffs, fattening our treasury, so we can bribe... er, subsidize the mainly older, Christian, and white landowning farmers in agricultural districts of rural states to keep supporting Trump through their outsized representation in Congress and the Electoral College. This deal is neater than the Iran-Contra swindle. Even though most of the Ag recipients are large industrial farmers, often with headquarters offices in big city skyscrapers, the con works like a charm on the gullible rubes. Trix Fix Clix Hix, as Variety might say.
Trump has no understanding of, or devotion to, America as it is today. He sees a country where everyone else’s kids should be farming or working in a factory. He’s vision is about 100 years out of date. That’s weird because his own kids are property managers, fashion “designers”, and financial investors. Nobody seems to notice the implied superiority of it all. He looks at the people at those rallies and thinks: here are the idiots who want their kids to grow my food and build my hotels.
10
This is SOCIALISM!! The socialists are coming...and farmers are encouraging it. They should refuse to take these socialist payments!
8
Rakes for California. Paper towels for PR. Billions for farmers. Trumpeconomics or vote buying. Take your pick.
6
The facts are shockingly all at this website. Here you can see the enormous amounts of cash thrown at farmers. You can search get county lists naming individual recipients and the amounts each received over decades
https://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php
2
The farmers "Trump money" is socialism 101. It's time to call the GOP out for what they are....a socialist party!
4
Maybe the welfare recipients could go work on the farm.
1
I encourage the readers to watch the PBS story last night on evictions in Richmond, Va.. Single women with kids having asthma from breathing mold spores facing eviction over and over. I know, I know the first notion is these are welfare queens living off the taxpayers. Well. in fact they work seven days a week to try and make ends meet. And the landlords find pursuing eviction as easy as buying a lottery ticket. No need to clean up that mold. And lets see who owns terrible properties like these. I believe that would be one Jared Kushner. And the thing that stunned me was how these women were smiling. Not raging with anger. But that is what the aggrieved rust belt Americans have wanted all along. Take away the mechanisms to help women like this. And give that support to white folks like them. Are they now not the new welfare kings and queens? Getting paid to grow nothing. The Black folks who get hooked on drugs? Off to jail for them. The white folks addicted to opioids? A nation cries an ocean of tears and sues the drug companies on their behalf. Well I got some news for the rust belt Americans. White is the new Black in America. And the defining feature of those white folks is anger and despair. They are now more like poor Blacks than rich Whites. But it will likely take a couple hundred years for them to figure that out.
8
It's freeloading when you are poor and/or non-white and fair and square when you are white. White makes right. MAGA is code for MAWA.
5
Apparently he thinks that farmers like him. All those small guys who have lost their farms, thanks to stupid tarriffs. Uh, no. AGRIBUSINESSES like him. They are the ones who have received most of the welfare and subsidies. They are the ones who are giving him a lot of money, now.
2
Trump likes white people better than non-white people.
2
We all know the reason he likes farmers: They cheer for him at rallys. That's as far as he can think, and it's all that he cares about. He doesn't see black people at his rallys, and he thinks that the majority of welfare recipients are black (incorrectly), so he wants to cut other forms of welfare.
1
Farms have long been subsidized, but starting a trade war to intentionally make farmers wards of the state invites this type of discrimination because the state gets to set the rules for the now-essential subsidies and this allocation will favor Trump politically because that is all he cares about.
Trump has some things in common with the regrettable former candidate Pat Buchanan. Buchanan's play for farmers - a larger demographic then compared to today - was to sunset subsidies and open up foreign markets for American farmers. This may have been a hollow promise, but at least it seems more difficult to enact discrimination with such an approach and it would likely be far more consistent with the desires of all involved. Such an approach might, for a present-day example, help preserve the rain forest in Brazil, but this would require the impossible - that Trump and his cronies care about the environment.
1
It is 2020 and we are still hamstrung as a species by Nationalism: the idea that there should be competition if not conflict between groups of humans depending on where those humans live. Rather than confronting climate change that is imminently going to reach a point of no return, if we aren’t there already, we are still building Super Aircraft Carriers, tactical nuclear submarines, and missiles. And for what?
We could be exploring our solar system, establishing colonies on various planets and moons, making sure no humans on our planet are starving, educating the planet, increasing the quality of life for everyone, we are stuck fighting each other. And for what?
Instead, we live in a world for which the scope and concentration of socioeconomic inequality has never been higher. A tiny fraction of the population owns most of the wealth, controls most of the power at the expense of everyone else. We certainly have the technology and science to save the planet, provide a good life for most of the humans living on it, reduce human suffering around the world dramatically, but we have governments that do not operate much differently than the Roman Empire 2000 years ago.
Trump is as much a symptom, an example of everything that is wrong with the world than he is a problem unto himself. Don’t get me wrong, he must go as soon as possible, but he should be the mother of all learning moments for America, for the world.
Is this who we really want to be? as a species?
.
2
Yes! We want to remain knuckle-draggers and make sure our kids are no better off - really any privation is ok as long as we can still feel superior to some other group, especially one that’s easy to identify at 40 paces.
Farmers are a extremely varied group. I am friends with a family of dairy farmers. They work non-stop because they can't afford much help, live paycheck to paycheck, caring for their herds. They can barely keep their equipment running and feed themselves, yet they manage to get by. Recent low milk prices have devastated them.
At the same time there is corporate farmer in town - he farms, owns a successful chain of tractor dealerships, controls a large percentage of land around town, and dabbles in land development.
Both are farmers. I know which business needs help, but I suspect them and farmers like them aren't the ones getting the majority of it.
3
How much of this money is going to Monsanto?
Mosanto owns 40% of US cropland. More corporate welfare. How many family farms are actually receiving subsidies? Come on NYT follow the money like investigative reporting is supposed to do.
3
We have seen an upsurge in farm bankruptcies, and upsurge of farmer suicides, and farm towns, communities and businesses are struggling for survival. Our family farms in West Texas have suffered from commodity price declines, bad weather, and expensive costs for equipment and labor to put crops in. Profit margins for farmers and agriculture are at historic lows.
I told the farmer who handles our family farm: "i just hope he signs the check for our farm, before he gets impeached or kicked out of office...sign the check...then go!" because Trump doesn't represent the character, integrity, or ethic of most American farmers. Our folks with Levi's, pick up trucks, dusty boots and big hats are salt of the earth people, but never have much liked that stuff from "New York City". Farmers know he is a fake, con, and blowhard.
So our message...Mr. President...stop tweeting and just sign the checks, and leave us alone! You created this tariff trade war...now just get out of our business, and go back to hotels or something you know about. Just like the Iran think, he creates problems, then takes credit by trying to undo the mistakes he has made. As President he is the kind of employee most people would let go.
Oh yes...sign the checks before you leave. Thanks.
4
@Ben Boothe Sr.
Just sign the checks, eh? Where do you think that money is coming from Ben? I'll tell you. It's coming from the tariffs that American companies are paying to keep in business. Why should American businesses subsidize farmer profits at all? This whole scenario is absurd.
@KB American consumers are paying the tariffs! Most companies are passing the costs along and we get to pay the farmers too. What a deal!
Farmers have been on FarmFare for years - nothing new. No other industry in american receives the welfare farmers do !
2
Oil and gas are also treated like starving, life-support victims despite their staggering profits.
Go figure.
Buying white rural votes with our tax dollars. Only in America.
7
I know Obamacare “ disproportionately benefits Blacks and Hispanics”, but just like the SNAP program, aren’t most recipients White?
Although the sentence correctly stated exactly what it means, the fact that most recipients of these aid programs are White, contrary to popular belief, cannot be overstated.
5
I say, stop subsidizing anything that has to do with food and if the farmers go broke we can buy all our commodities from Saudi Arabia.
Did you forget corporate owned farms, Mr. Bowie? Aren't they double dipping by getting subsidies and tax breaks? And how many family owned farms have gone bankrupt due to Trump's trade war? Family farms that corporate owned farms have swooped in to buy dirt cheap? Republicans claim to despise socialism until they're on the receiving end of it or are able to capitalize on some person's financial demise.
5
The left is always saying how rural states get way more in tax money than urban states. This is a big reason why. The money often goes to rich landowners and corporations who own farms and ranches in the form of corporate welfare. It rarely goes to struggling rural citizens. Why would it? They don’t make political contributions or have influence in Washington. Poor rural people have far more in common with the urban poor than they do with farm or ranch owners. Politics keeps these natural allies apart.
1
Mr. Bouie of course is right. Typically for the Trump Administration, the payments to farmers haven't really made up for the loss of sales to most of them, even the white ones (if I recall correctly, the biggest payments go to the biggest landowners, which would be typical for Trump policies, and which helps to produce the racial bias that Mr. Bouie mentions).
2
American farmers feed the world.
I've been lucky enough to hand out bags of grains, rice and wheat all marked as USA Aid in Haiti, and East Africa.
This rations were all produced by subsidized farmers and probably saved thousands of lives.
5
There is some truth to what you say. But this food production comes at a huge cost to the environment and taxpayer. We and the rest of the world would benefit far more by teaching the world sustainable farming practices and helping with family planning . We would benefit by doing this here as well.
Remember, if you're white, it's not welfare.
I remember presidents back to Eisenhower. And I grew up in a white America that was not very friendly to folks like me (brown-skinned minorities whose ancestors did not come from Europe). I went on to become a trial lawyer in the 1970's. Before that, I saw incredible progress through the Civil Rights movement, and the Women's rights movement. Women and people of color were beginning to have opportunities - educational and professional - that our parents had only dreamed about.
But effort was valued. Education was valued. Science and facts mattered. Everyone believed this - even Republicans. We were told that all we needed to do was to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps in order to succeed. So millions of us did. I worked my way through college and law school. And I worked 60+ hours a week in an extremely demanding profession to provide for my family in a manner my parents could only dream of.
Fast forward to today. Trump voters tell us we're uppity. They tell us that we're "elites" because we've tried to better ourselves. You know, put in all that effort they told us to make? Now they're angry that some of us have actually done well in this country. And they're taking out their anger on us. But Trump has pacified many of them with these farm "subsidies."
Trump voters cannot better themselves. They want something for nothing. But they're virtuosos at taking their hate out on others. Much like the president they worship.
57
Trump makes no bones about the fact that he cares only about people who adore him, whether those are personal, business, or political relationships. And as Mr. Bouie writes, there were enough people who adore him in states that are over-represented in the Electoral College and Senate to put him and keep him in office. The solution for a return to a government that represents the majority of us and protects the minorities among us is turnout, turnout, turnout. In every blue district in every red state. A bigger blue wave than in 2018 that will deliver the Senate and Presidency into the hands of people who understand that "We the People" means all of us in 2020.
18
China has manipulated trade policies in a way that systematically advantages itself at the expense of the United States and other western countries. Democrats in the United States used to be willing to admit that. Trump was elected in part on a pledge to combat that. His main weapon is trade tariffs. It is a powerful weapon, since the Chinese economy is strongly dependent on the ability to sell goods to the United States. And China's ability to strike back is limited, because the U.S. is nowhere near as dependent on selling goods to China as China is in selling goods to the U.S. But farming--and the production of soybeans--is one area where the U.S. does sell significant goods to China. So farmers are collateral damage this conflict between the United States and China. Under those circumstances, it seems totally appropriate for the U.S. to make payments to farmers, so they don't have to bear the brunt of the cost of a trade policy that is being pursued for the ultimate benefit of the country as a whole.
As to Bouie's broader argument that Trump is rewarding his constituents by pursuing policies that benefit them--how are the Democrats any different? Democrats support "reparations" for slavery. They support "affirmative action" programs that privilege non-whites (including recent immigrants) over whites. If they pursue policies that benefit their constituents and disadvantage others, one shouldn't be surprised when Republicans do the same.
5
Mr. Bouie is one of the remarkably few writers who point out both of the two key objectives of the tax legislation when he writes: "It [this government] has worked for the wealthy and their heirs."
Thomas Piketty in "Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century" makes it explicit that the two core objectives of the 1% are first accumulation of wealth (to the relative disadvantage of others) and, second, the inter-generational transfer of wealth.
9
Farm groups and farm industry trade groups worked for decades to build their former robust export markets, including China. It was very surprising to see the apparent majority of farmers and farm groups stand behind Trump after he implemented his erratic and strategy-devoid tariffs. The government payments are huge, in total, but they are not covering the difference for most individual farmers. Farm bankruptcies are up 24% according to the Farm Bureau Federation. Very sadly, suicides in farming regions have increased. These are very, very serious issues for our nation, but Trump continues to play with tariffs as though they are his toys.
195
@PABlue
China was subjecting American wheat to a 65% import tax. That's not a "robust" trade situation.
7
@PABlue
The big market was in soybeans and most of those benefitting from Trump's largesse are corporate farms. As to farm bankruptcies, a lot of those are dairy farms in trouble because Trump has taken away their cheap labor pool by deporting undocumented workers while continuing to employ them himself!
I agree we shouldn't have underpaid and cheated illegal labor, but we need an honest system to replace those workers.
34
It wasn’t taking away the labor it was the decline in demand for milk that is killing the dairy industry. All the snowflakes want soy or almond milk no matter how destructive those crops are to the environment.
2
Agreed. "Farmers" have been some of the greatest recipients of socialized welfare.... 1) subsidized production, 2) artificial price supports for their products, 3) subsidized crop insurance, 4) protected by tariffs (see US ethanol v Brazilian ethanol), among others.
But, as a group, the 'farmers' don't want the feds to get involved with their business. Hypocritical? Maybe.
225
@PlayOn
Not "maybe". Yes, very hypocritical.
28
@PlayOn Not maybe, no question about being hypocritical by taking taxpayer's money over and over again especially those sitting in Congress miles from the farm yet still have their hands out for the check, 33 of them to date.
16
@PlayOn
Drive up and down the CA Central Valley to see all the anti-government signs and slogans farmers have posted on their land. Unbelievable hypocrisy. These guys put welfare mommas to shame with their subsidies.
They're the perfect example of delusion in action - which describes the typical Trump voter to a T.
22
I support farmers when it is just (weather, market swings beyond their ability to adjust short term, diseases or insect disasters), I just wish they supported we who buy their produce in return. Because farmer voting patterns are doing real damage to many of us and we have no chance of a functional government supporting our equitable needs.
384
@poslug I do not think you have the data to support any conclusion about farmer voting patterns. There are fewer and fewer farmers and their proportion of rural voting continues to diminish. If you took a close look, you would find that the rural votes you do not like are coming mainly from nonfarmers in dying rural communities as Americans concentrate in metropolitan areas.
25
@DavidS
You are probably correct. I am being influenced by interviews selected by news stations in the deep mid west. None of these interviewees are "corporate" farmers but residual family farms, some in dairy, some mixed crop. I am also sure there is a serious difference between the farmer/rancher in Texas, one in northern Iowa and the berry farmer in Michigan. My point is that I feel for them, those of the land.
My own home county in western NY had over 3,000 farms in the late 1930s and now has none. I left as did the farm kids in my school classes. Those who stayed rural all vote GOP. The town is a sad shadow of what it once was and could have been.
66
@poslug
Yes, farmers voting records have helped create Donald Trump. If you had driven across Florida's southern orange grove area during 2016 election you would have seen huge Trump signs posted in their fields.
96
People always conjure up this little ma and pa farm when they think of farmers and subsidies, why yes we must support farmers they grow our food. Never mind the fact that these farms have been gobbled up by corporate farming since the sixties, and its all about commodities that are exchanged on Wall Street. So when your tax dollars are used to give the “farmer” his subsidy remove the picture from your eye of American gothic and replace it by six combines, six grain carts, six wagons, and six trucks chewing up acres in days. Farming is big business and costly and farming corporations will always have its hand out for government subsidies, why not.
447
@CathyK Farming is still important. If it becomes less valuable then those corporate farms become subdivisions instead and the land to farm on is permanently lost.
13
@Ken
And the "nutrients" high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose...
20
@CathyK Farming isn't growing vegetables and raising pigs, chickens, and beef, it's manufacturing soybeans and meat.
106
Farmers, before Trump's stupid unilateral trade impositions, were doing reasonably well; then, losing their exporting strength, Trump made them dependent, on welfare (at our expense). How is that working out?!
9
You need to ground yourself in the agriculture industry a little bit more before making assumptions about who exactly got those subsidies. In general, it was a handful of rural oligarchs and corporate farming operations who collected that bail out. The idea that Trump is fighting for white farmers is pretty naive and revealing of your indifference to the struggles happening in rural America. In fact, he is fighting for plutocrats. Your biases seem to be pushing you to fan the conflict between poor white rural people and poor black urban people, but I really wish you'd focus on starting the war that needs to be fought by poor people (white and black in solidarity) against the oligarchs who exploit them.
8
That trump's welfare reeks of racism is no surprise. He is the son of a racist, grew up in a racist home, and has shown no sign that he wants to break with his past.
But let's dispense with this warm, fuzzy and imaginary descriptions of "farmers". Sure, there are some that personify a stoic hard working image while tending small plots to feed themselves and their country.
Successful "farmers", on the other hand, are hard pragmatic businessmen and generally corporations. They, like my cousins in Minnesota, learned a long time ago that it is better to buy land and lease it to aspiring "farmers" rather than work the land themselves. They have become land-lords in a truer sense than trump will ever be. The largest of these, e.g. Cargill, Purina, and ADM, are also the largest recipients of government dole. These same "farmers" have no problem heaping expletive-laden scorn on welfare recipients, should they be unwed mothers.
But then hypocrisy is a disease that even "farmers" can catch.
9
If we do not eliminate the Electoral College and make the Senate more proportional to population, our nation faces a new Civil War. Farmers beware: a populist could make an appeal to large population states. Cut off farmers and import what we need and don't grow in large population states. It could get very ugly.
>In Mississippi, for example, 14 percent of farms are run by black operators, but those farmers have received 1.4 percent of the aid that has been distributed in the state.
***Why is that? Is it because the black farmers are doing well without getting aid? Is it because black farmers don't know how to apply? Is it because the government has adamantly refused aid to black farmers because they're black? Please explain...
> In December, the Trump administration announced tighter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, commonly known as food stamps.
***What's wrong with that, if able-bodied people can find gainful employment? Am I missing something here?
4
@Michael Radowitz Because the aid is given based on the size of the land or the amount of the crop, not the farmer.
Trump: Buying votes from big conglomerate farms with handouts of taxpayer money because of tariffs he imposed. Crazy like a fox . Win win for Trump.
4
Trump is evil, but not exactly stupid. He needs the farmers and will continue to bribe them until election today. If he is re-elected he will turn off the money spigot on November 4th.
My advice to America's welfare farmers is to save your acorns.
6
America has always liked white farmers better than black farmers.
Remember Shirley Sherrod was a lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleging decades of discrimination against black farmers in every one of it's programs.
Sherrod received some brief notoriety for being falsely accused of discriminating against a white farmer while she was employed at the Department. George W. Bush finally settled the suit with financial compensation. But the black farmers land was gone.
My paternal great grandfather lost his cotton farming business to the boll weevil and a hostile Uncle Sam in Georgia.
All federal benefits and programs from Agriculture to Education to Housing to Social Security to Veterans Affairs were set up to discriminate against blacks in America. In accord with the Jim Crow policies of Woodrow Wilson and his successors.
32
@Blackmamba
I also remember how Obama fires her after falling for that doctored tape by Breitbart and his minions. He was so afraid of hurting white people’s feelings... same with the embarrassing “beer summit”
1
"Contrast the president’s enthusiasm for his farm payments with his disdain for traditional assistance."
I find it ironic how assistance to urban residents is called welfare while the same money coming from the same source to farmers is called a bailout. I wonder why?
13
Could it be that they are mostly conservative Republicans? The fact that they survive oas farmers is based on billions of dollars of government handouts doesn't change their far right politics.
8
@Jeff
The Republicans love to give money to each other and giving handouts to Republican farmers is no different.
The welfare to farmers and ranchers is a way to ensure their votes.
That is why many people refer to their land as ranches and get a horse or two to declare that handout status.
Plain and simple.
6
Agriculture and farming is the original and oldest “interest group” receiving subsidies and governmental support since the Republic was founded. There are sound reasons for this: providing food and raw materials for production is essential to the welfare of the citizenry.
Unfortunately, the sole proprietor small farm has given way to the industrialization and concentration of agricultural land holding and attendant forced reliance on pesticide and GMO use. Agribusiness and monoculture is required for economic success, even by smaller operations.
Ethanol is one of many schemes implemented to subsidize crop surpluses to keep farmers large and small in the money, even though it is well documented that ethanol production creates a deficit in total BTU production; i.e. the net energy produced by ethanol is many times less than the energy needed to actually produce it. This reverse alchemy is crazy, but it keeps agriculture afloat and allows farmers to work.
6
@tim s. Not to mention the ethonal mandate caused many hectare of rainforest in Latin America to be slashed and burned to grow crops, since the per bushel price of corn and soybeans skyrocketed.
1
Individual farmers and executives at companies receiving this money must be routinely drug tested and told to learn to code.
58
Sixty Fortune 500 companies paid ZERO taxes in 2019. Why do we not call this welfare?
Amazon warehouses require services from localities (especially additional ambulances), yet pay nothing in taxes.
We need to reframe the discussion. Profitable businesses are the REAL “welfare queens.”
59
@Babs Companies provide jobs, "welfare queens" do not.
1
Mr. Boule is writing this as if the party in power benefitting those who voted for it is a revelation rather than politics as usual. The real condition of many, perhaps most Americans, is hidden by “full employment” statistics, a rising stock market and other indicators of a strong economy for those who are already high on the ladder.
It’s hard to have boot straps when all you have is flip flops.
10
@GiGi: One is no longer classified as "unemployed" when their unemployment benefits have run out. They are then classified as "voluntarily leaving the workforce." It's a neat Republican trick to make unemployment seem a lot lower than is really is.
10
@Jeff The “voluntarily leaving the workforce” is not the only indicator that skews the data.
And the politicians of either party will never point those indicators out.
3
If the 14% of farms in Mississippi run by black operators are significantly smaller than those run by others, it makes sense that their share of aid isn't proportional.
Including this statistic is attempting a lie.
More information is needed, to evaluate its real significance.
9
"Trump Likes Farmers Better Than Some Other Welfare Recipients"
He finds it easier to buy their loyalty.
8
I look forward to my taxes going down because the administration wants to save $5 billion by moving 700,000 adults off of SNAP.
Ha! Sometimes I make myself laugh.
This administration is despicable.
16
Because Trump seems to revert back to the time he thought life was great, does he simply like farmers because as a kid/teenager he was always told directly or indirectly that they are rubes? And, of course, Trump's entire business life involved swindling rubes to some degree. So he now subconsciously views them gullible to his 'deals'?
2
@B.R. Indeed. The foundation of a grifter's success is identifying a mark.
3
These small farmers are the same group that was trotted out to essentially nullify the estate tax, otherwise framed as the "Death Tax" by the GOP. None of them would have been effected because their estates are a pittance compare to the true land barons, but they had no problem showing up to photo-ops in their John Deere caps to be used as props for plutocrats. Now they're grinning stooges for Trump's reelection; at least this time, it's a paying gig.
15
Buying votes isn't that progressive, actually. And when Trump shouted "I love the poorly educated!," he meant it.
Stop giving this tyrant credit for anything, please.
3
Why are Farmers are the recipients of handouts - its because these guys actually work as opposed to simply waiting for handouts.
Why are White Farmers the disproportionate beneficiaries of this handout - Let me answer it this way : Did you know that Donald Trump and his father refused to lease / rent homes to African Americans?
Yes - this was already well known before he entered the primaries in 2015.
2
@Plato
If a farmer goes broke, he becomes unemployed... same as many unemployed: that does not mean that as aa group they do not want to work, they are just out of their old job or area of expertise...
Everyone works if a decent salary is offered; with few exceptions of people with mental problems.
4
Why would that be? Maybe because farmers work for a living. And when they have children, they put their children to work on the farm, too.
2
@Mario Diana
So if they're working for a living, why do they need welfare?
Say it out loud and realize how your assertion makes no since.
7
You do know that poor people also work, sometimes 2 or 3 low wage jobs that still isn’t enough to live in the USA
1
Ah yes. My husband and I life on a small farm where we keep resuce horses. We are surrounded by much larger soybean farms (100s of acres each). They all vote Republican as evidenced by they yard signs at election time. They complain about the "welfare state" of which they are now a part. They also complain that the subsidies take a long time to arrive, it is unclear how much they will be getting and that the payments won't cover the losses they are experiencing. Life is truy hard in welfare land. Better get rid of those black and brown unworthy welfare recipients who are taking too much of the welfare pie.
12
@Susan : but by far, most people on welfare are white.
Most people on food stamps are white.
Most poor people are white.
(Most black people are middle class.)
Why is it you think everyone on welfare and food stamps is black?
Curious how our president and his GOP lackeys embrace socialism when it comes to securing the votes of his supporters, our farmers, with welfare bailout checks.
8
Just another trick in Trump's endless bag of 'em: Throw obscene gobs of money to certain groups of voters while robbing others such as the poor helpless and to pay for the largesse.
Just another day in these Divided States of America.
8
you can call it welfare for farmers or you can call it what it really is: a bribe. the second choice is more honest.
16
Most poor people in the country are white, and most black people are middle class, so the author's analysis makes no sense. If you wanted to wage a war on poor folk, you'd be hurting white people most of all. I agree that there are many problems with "welfare" to farmers (and corporations) but making this about race is absurd.
7
President Trump bragged about these payments at a recent rally in Toledo, Ohio, and promised even more for the nation’s farmers. “We’re signing a monster,” he said. “A big, beautiful monster. Forty to 50 billion dollars to our farmers.”
Translation: vote for me...just like how he responds to money dangled in front of him so he thinks others will as well. Don't get me wrong...I feel for anyone who is suffering at the little hands of this foolishly dangerous president but he put this in motion and now my tax dollars are part of a bail out. I resent being forced into this ponzi scheme by the biggest schemer of them all. The big, beautiful monster is you, donald trump.
8
It's simple. People want looooow taxes, small gubmint, and gubmint out of our lives UNLESS it affects them. Isn't that right:
- farmers (especially for corn and sugar used in products that help make Americans obese)
- oil & gas producers
- defense contractors
5
Who knew so many farmers were socialists?
8
What an absurd opinion piece. While I am against farm subsidies, especially for large, multi-million dollar corporate operations, at least they produce food! What do urban welfare recipients produce?
6
@Donna Gray "What an absurd opinion piece."
Only to those who think american farmers produce all the food consumed in this country.
3
@Donna Gray God's Children
1
Poor children just can’t suffer enough to suit Republicans
1
Just saw an article about suicide rate for farmers. Three times the national average.
3
@David
Many farmers that go broke prefer the "easy way out", than confront reality and learn a new job.
Socialism is a curse word to Republicans and the Party of Trump. Yet, government subsidies to favored groups (farmers, coal miners) are a form of socialism -- an especially clumsy form of socialism.
Apparently, socialism is OK, as long as it's Republican socialism.
5
The human capacity for rationalization appears infinite. A white farmer convinces himself that he and all his coffee shop buddies are "righteous" recipients of welfare because their steely-eyed, real-American grit "built this country". The country "owes them", you see, and their "way of life" is to be propped up at all costs because it is righteous. It's a tautology, though very few would understand that word. They vote in pandering politicians with this belief, so they can create and reinforce this "reality". For now, anyway. The chickens are circling, looking for a roosting spot.
4
Absurd! As if there are no white people on welfare. There are plenty especially down south. Even if there are more blacks welfare recipients, this is not a Black-White issue. The farmers were collateral damage from Trump's China trade deals. As he continues negotiations, subsidizing the farmers have been his way of helping them "hold on" until they can resume profitability. America needs our farmers, use of their farmland and their exports for our own economy. There is just no comparison to unemployed welfare recipients taking only from the system. This is just another example of calling out discrimination inappropriately.
5
@Deb
Accept there are more white people on welfare than black people.
I see what you tried to do there.
2
Which group, farm welfare vs general welfare is waking up at 5 am to start their 16 hour day? Which group is working regardless of weather because they know there is work to be done and nobody else there to do it? Which group ends their day caked in dirt? I am willing to have my tax dollars go to whichever group is doing that regardless of skin color.
6
@SH
Every day of the year, or only in growing seasons?
1
@SH
General welfare recipients work as well. Clinton put those requirements in place.
Get facts. Right now you have none.
Plenty of working people don't have a livable wage.
You've just demonstrated exactly what the author stated in his opinion. Now you've made his opinion fact.
The sad part, you don't even realize how you proved the point.
3
You have no idea how hard poor people work. Yes. They get up at dawn to, to make it to their first low wage job. They might have 2 or 3 low wage jobs and still can’t pay rent and still need food stamps
1
Didn't bother to read article based on title. Farmers are not afraid of work. Can't say as much about others who collect welfare benefits.
5
@Eddie
Nobody is afraid of work, they unemployed persons just reject been paid salaries that are not enough for subsistence.
2
You know nothing about people who collect welfare benefits. And when people fight for living wage jobs, Republicans complain about that too.
1
Many of the states receiving the highest subsidy amounts voted for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election and are key to his re-election chances in 2020.
“You gotta remember why the trade aid is there: they’re political payments to farmers to keep them in the Republican fold,” said Bruce Babcock, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside. “Trump hurt farm income through his trade tariffs. And so what they’re trying to do is keep a big force — rural Americans and farmers — voting Republican.”
https://www.marketplace.org/2019/12/12/these-are-the-states-benefiting-the-most-from-the-28-billion-farm-bailout/
4
I don't think Trump likes anyone. He seems like a miserable person who is suspicious of everyone, including his family.
3
Farmers grow stuff—that’s a good thing!
1
@Pjlit All working people make stuff. But why should Farmers get massive federal aid that the average working person is denied? Byt the way, the largest farmers in California's Central Valley are Insurance companies and railroads.
5
Another article about Trump's actions that caused me to take out my blood pressure monitor.
1
great piece.
Note to Mr. Bouie: Please be aware that these "welfare recipients" keep food on your table.
6
@John Jabo So do the minimum wage and many times illegals farmworkers who actually grow that food, harvest it and ship it. Did you know that the Federal minimum wages for farm workers is about 80% of non-farmworkers. Did you know that farmers get government water at below cost while the rest of us pay the full cost? Oh, and they are guaranteed government payments when the market price of their crops. dips below a certain level.
5
@John Jabo
If they are so good, why the rest of the society have to put them in the "preferred list" in welfare?
3
@John Jabo
He bailed out soybean farmers! How many soybeans do YOU eat?
Meanwhile dairy farmers are going under and he doesn't blink an eye. I guess milk isn't real food.
The tariffs cost farmers business. China went to Canada.
In order to get those sales back, U.S. farmers will have to undercut Canadian farmers.
The effect of Trump's tariffs will inevitably result in lower prices for farm products in order to regain market share.
After the tariffs and the subsidies, farmers will earn less.
2
Agribusiness, not even farmers. People with millions of dollars in land and equipment. The neighborhood pizza place, Chinese takeout, sushi bar, taco stand -- those are family businesses.
5
The President of The United States runs America as school yard bully the entire country his playground to bait sorting out the vulnerable to victimize. It’s Trump method of how to divide and conquer a nation with every step calculated to aggrandize his own power. American President as demagogue. Or as Trump may visualize it, ringmaster of a top rated reality show that has the world captivated 24/7. Who would ever have foreseen the advent of such a chapter in the American story? A dystopia where a prime agenda is, as written here, to “deliver pain to disfavored groups, to target them and make a show of it.” What this country is in the midst of is an American tragedy.
7
Puh-leeze! Can we stop talking about "farmers" and start talking about "agribusiness"? This is not Ma and Pa Kettle, it's ADM and Monsanto and Perdue (both the Hog Perdue who runs Ag and the Chicken Perdues of Ag-Welfare fame).
Agribusinesses ($1M/yr +) = only 4% of US farms, yet produce 2/3 of US crops. Just a decade ago, those numbers, were 1% and 50%. Conversely, 3/4 of all U.S. farms gross only $50,000 a year and account for only 4 percent of production. The movement from Small to very Big is largely due to our federal gov't's policies, which have been strongly influenced by Citizens Divided-funded lobbyists.
The Bigs have purchased our Congress Critters (who supposedly represent us) and will continue to extend their gains unless we vote the so-and-so's out of office.
17
My family’s roots are in the Dakotas. We have seen first hand
the Trump subsidies provided help keeping money in farmers
pockets.
The sad part is many farmers know their on the hook to Trump.
Many don’t care.
3
@The Chief from Cali "the Trump subsidies provided help keeping money in farmers
pockets. "
So that's called welfare, right?
3
@The Chief from Cal: Welfare is good for farmers but bad for everyone else?
1
There are certain major differences between the soybean subsidies and traditional welfare programs which make the comparisons somewhat inaccurate.
First, they are more related to the earned income credit than to SNAP, as they are only going to individuals who are working but are unable to maintain their income levels. Second, the reason why these farmers have lost income is directly related to government actions. Since it was the government's fault, it is only fair that at least some of the sting should be alleviated by the government.
As to the disparity mentioned in the article, how many of the 14 percent of farms run by black farmers are soybean farms, and what is the comparison of revenues between them and the farms which received the subsidies.
1
There are certain major differences between the soybean subsidies and traditional welfare programs which make the comparisons somewhat inaccurate.
First, they are more related to the earned income credit than to SNAP, as they are only going to individuals who are working but are unable to maintain their income levels. Second, the reason why these farmers have lost income is directly related to government actions. Since it was the government's fault, it is only fair that at least some of the sting should be alleviated by the government.
As to the disparity mentioned in the article, how many of the 14 percent of farms run by black farmers are soybean farms, and what is the comparison of revenues between them and the farms which received the subsidies.
2
Given that the farm states that receive these most of these handouts send very few Democrats to congress, I don't understand why the House of Representatives just doesn't refuse to continue the farm subsidies. Republicans endlessly advertise themselves in opposition to government assistance since it promotes dependency. Help them realize their goal starting with the farm subsidies. Or make them pay by funding something that really matters to Democrats.
4
@Bill Baker
Read the article. The subsidies are being provided under current law and need not be approved by the Congress. If Congress wants to stop the subsidies then the law needs to be changed. An impossibility under our current system.
1
Kentucky is the third poorest state in the union and it is over 90% white. Some of the only people in Appalachia with steady incomes are those who are on Social Security Disability. Scamming social security has become one of their cottage industries. When I lived there I knew some of their workforce development people. In moments of candor they would admit that yes, there were unemployed people, but no, they weren't a workforce.
4
". But his supporters could relish in the anti-immigrant hostility of his administration, as if travel bans and detention camps could actually restore the lost wages of racial advantage rather than build a worse, more precarious world for everyone."
Democrats do the same thing. They blame the rich - though would taxing the rich at much higher rates really improve the income for those unmarried or without an education ? And Democrats solutions like Obamacare disproportionately help minorities and the young which form the core of the Democratic base. (46% of those on Medicaid are black or Hispanic and most are young.)
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/medicaid-enrollment-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
That's really where Trump is different - and what really upsets Democrats. In the past, Republicans were relatively optimistic. Sure, they passed policies which helped the rich such as lowering taxes - but keep in mind that income is first and foremost owned by the person whose name is on the check. But now, BOTH parties scapegoat the "other". For Democrats, the "other" is rich, white males. For Republicans, the "other" is immigrants and foreigners. In both cases, however, curtailment of the other doesn't really help the country. But both parties will do what they can to pass policies that prefer their segment of the population.
4
Very salient points. Trump has also said he wants to make Social Security Disability Insurance more onerous. He wants people to have to prove they're disabled every six months. Who is on SSDI? The downtrodden in society, of every race and ethnicity. He has targeted his farm welfare at the biggest landowners, making the most income. Will farmers realize his climate policies will eventually doom him? Will small government conservatives recognize his patron capitalism will turn against them if they cross him? If he doles out transactional favors to those who support him, what happens when one disagrees with him? He is creating a wall of inviolable pocketbook support, when presidents should be doubted at every turn, so great is their power.
3
Now why would that be? Because we all like to eat. Capitalism nor socialism benefits farmers. If demand is high and supply is low, farmers do not benefit. If demand is low and supply in low farmers do not benefit. If demand is low and supply is high farmers suffer. If demand is high and supply is high helps.
Markets must be sought and kept. There are enough food deserts in urban areas. Let's not bite the hands that feed us. We don't need more food deserts. Maybe we should just say thank you to the farmers.
3
@EFS - We have food deserts not because we don't have enough food, but because we can't get quality food to markets that need it at an affordable price.
9
@EFS Ha Ha, since 911 America has funded right wing people that inhabit the Military, Police, Border Patrol and Farmers then railed against Socialism. Hypocrisy is founding premise of the GOP.
PS those Farmers keep the money and there is no trickle down to the laborers, truckers or other entities that support farming operations.
3
@Greg
And I thought the founding premise of the Republican Party was stopping the spread of slavery. Farmers are the laborers and the truckers. Without farmers there are not entities to support them.
I gotta say James, that I very much enjoy your clear and concise writing style.
We know Bernie has been watching, and I hope he is elected. I hope you agree, enough so, anyway. I feel he will, with an eye to your thinking for decades, turn these kinds things around, on a dime.
3
The argument isn’t about Socialism, it’s about who gets it.
28
@Jean The large farms owned by corporations are getting the lion's share of the financial help from government. Meanwhile, thousands of small farmers are declaring bankruptcy, while they are using food stamps and food banks but they see this as a hardship they have to bear because "45 is MAGA" and everyone will benefit in the long run. What a head scratcher that is!
15
@Beener
And, when a family farm declares bankruptcy who benefits? Developers and corporate farms that swoop in to gobble up the land at fire sale prices-crying crocodile tears the entire time.
6
Folks that work and need government assistance should get it whether a fast food worker or farmer regardless of ethnicity or where they live.
7
@DWC - This. The idea that any one group of workers represents America is false, and I'm sick to death of it. I'd like to see the farmers of today get by without the products of the tech sector and and the workers in both rely on workers in the service sector. And we'd all die of boredom without those in the arts and entertainment sectors. We all depend on each other, and unless we start acting like it, we'll all fail as a group, too.
6
Politicians have been buying the votes of Midwest Farmers with handouts as long as I can remember and I am 60 years old.
22
I hear this all the time at my workplace in mostly rural northwest Georgia: my fellow white folks complaining nonstop about how the federal government is taking money out of their hard-earned paycheck and giving handouts to undeserving minorities who refuse to work and keep having kids.
Meanwhile, many of the woman are grandmothers by their late-30s, with their kids and grandchildren both on PeachCare, the Georgia state Medicaid program. Many of the men have kids by multiple women. Work affairs run rampant.
Inevitably, though, they NEEDED the assistance. Things are DIFFERENT in their case!
It always is, isn't it? It always is.
51
Well, it all goes without saying. To the 45th President's supporters it's all about causing pain to "those people" while taking care of "The right sorts of people." And that's always been the American way!
5
Welfare for farmers and the rich is so simple tat even Trump could understand it. they are his constituents who he must cow tow to to keep his presidency. It is all about his fixation on self interest before everything else. The idea of helping people for the sake of helping them just does not enter his mind and if it does it only is with disdain.
8
Farmers work for a living and produce goods - Mr.Bouie's counterexample eat cheese and watch TV for their welfare checks - you see the difference there - it is not all that subtle.
Mr. Bouie's welfare poster examples could disappear form the macroeconomic environment and nothing would be amiss - farmers disappear and we would all starve.
5
@SteveRR So you've bought into the stereotype then of people who need food assistance, that they're shiftless folk? Good for you. Take a minute to really learn about what these people do to improve their lives or the lives of others while on SNAP. You won't? Figures.
2
If the 14% of farms in Mississippi run by black operators are significantly smaller than those run by others, it makes sense that their share of aid isn't proportional.
Including this statistic is attempting a lie.
More information is needed, to evaluate its real significance.
10
As with Iran, the tariffs and their consequences are a crisis of Trump's own making. The bar is now so low that whenever the president starts a fire and puts it out—instead of pouring gasoline on it—he and his supporters feel they deserve a round of applause.
Personally? I buy all my meat and 90% of my produce from small, local growers close to me in New England. It is a privilege to be able to buy good quality, organic food grown on a biodiverse farm and I will support my local farmers in whatever way I can, especially they don't receive the big federal subsidies that the Trump-supporting farmers do.
19
Trump is subsidizing those who vote for him. Farm products are the most often harmed by tariffs if they trade with foreign entities. These tend to be the more affluent producers. These are the Republican farmers.
14
So very well said. I love this column. Thank you Mr. Bouie!
9
He likes Real Estate Developers with the capital gains carry forward hidden deduction best. Next , Dead 1% with no estate tax at all . Then comes corporations with their new lower tax and the the mega-farmers. The rest can take comfort in who he hates the least or ignores, if you're lucky.
6
"And the Trump phenomenon also shows that you don’t have to deliver the benefits to hold those voters in your camp. All you have to do is deliver pain to disfavored groups, to target them and make a show of it."
Trump supporters get off as much from hurting those deemed "enemies" by an irresponsible president who plays favorites.
Sure, every politician plays to their core audience, but never before in our history has a president played the reverse Robin Hood game--steal from the poor to reward the rich--as significantly as Trump.
To think that mega farmers, even those whose headquarters are outside the US, are profiting from presidential largesse at the expense of the truly needy is sickening. He traffics in cruelty and exclusion to hold onto a base convinced they deserve more than any other demographic group in the country.
30
Pardon me for noting this, but is there any topic in which you can't frame your response as old white men being advantaged over underrepresented minorities? This approach in your columns reflects an intrinsic, and sometimes explicit, bias against those who are the majority in this country. This bias is what drives that majority to support Trump.
5
@Dr B
Excuse me, but the bias started with "old, white man" against all others including white women and has continued for my entire 57 years on this earth. As a woman, and white, I agree 100% with the author's view.
14
@Dr B
As an old white man, I'm perfectly fine with Mr. Bouie pointing out systemic inequity in federal spending. To acknowledge a problem candidly and articulately is a good thing. It forces all of us to evaluate where we stand and why we stand in that particular spot. Looking at the long view, small black and white farmers have been systematically disadvantaged by the flow of farm subsidies to large private land owners and the ever enlarging agribusiness mega farms. There is both a racial inequity and a wealth inequity in these programs that must be addressed.
7
@Dr B White people may be in the majority in this country, but old white men definitely are not, and I say this as a white woman.
Yet old white men like Trump and many of his supporters have disproportionately grabbed everything they can for themselves, leaving as little as possible for everyone else. That's not bias; it's a fact.
7
These handouts (paid by our tax dollars) were caused and self-inflicted by Trump and his trade wars ….”Trade wars are good and easy to win”. Ironically, Trump OKs payouts (welfare) amounting to $19 billion dollars to farmers while cutting back on the SNAP program which helps those in need to save $5 billion. Let’s not forget the recent pension bailout for minors which will be funded by the tax payer as well and the tremendous tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
This administration is great for calling out disadvantage segments of the population and criticizing them for not pulling their weight every opportunity they get while at the same time providing generous bailouts and subsidies to advantaged groups and those they favor or who favor their party. The GOP, Trump, supporters and voters criticize Democrats and label them as socialist for trying to make this a better and equal Nation for all. However, when it comes to the GOP distributing tax payer dollars it is called anything but socialism while their supporters (recipients) gladly take the money………….If this isn’t socialism what is?
9
Welfare payments to white farmers and targeting benefits to minority Americans is just a single example of Trump’s governing philosophy. All decisions are political: benefits flow to those who vote Trump, while pain is inflicted on those opposed. Trump is not president of all Americans, just those who vote for him. That is the shame of this administration.
12
Right wing extremists like Missouri Senator Hawley and Arkansas Senator Cotton are paying close attention to Trump’s open use of white nationalism and his doling out of favors to his voters only. The only thing stopping future (and smarter) mini Trumps is what happens after he leaves office. If Trump is prosecuted and convicted for his many crimes, and serves a long prison term they may he discouraged from repeating this experiment.
16
So who would this be?
“Donald Trump has been too erratic and undisciplined to take welfare chauvinism as far as it could probably go. But it is almost certainly true that somewhere in American politics, there’s someone who has paid attention to what Trump has discovered and is planning accordingly.”
Spot on! The best comment I could make is to highlight this from Bouie: "That gets to one takeaway from the Trump years: that there’s a real constituency for the white welfare state he gestured at during his campaign. It’s not a majority, but our election rules (starting with the Electoral College) and the structure of our government (like equal representation of states in the Senate) make it large enough to claim and maintain real political power. And the Trump phenomenon also shows that you don’t have to deliver the benefits to hold those voters in your camp."
Add the following post script from another commenter and you pretty much have the story: Who's paying for this? We are in the form of bearing a massive increase in the deficit. Trumponomics at its finest.
4
I just finished reading about Bloomberg trying to buying a nomination and an election using his own $1B and then here is Trump buying the election using the taxpayers' money at $28B for just our farmers. And who pays for his countless rallies where he adds to his 15,000 lies. It's not the 10,000 rally attendees that bother me but the millions of cable TV watchers that he reaches at again, taxpayer expense. How much taxpayer money is Trump using to buy this election from his base? The US government, CNN, MSNBC & Fox News need to give all candidates equal time and equal support in this election.
8
Let’s stop the mythology of the small farmer. Most of these farm welfare programs “help” large farms and agribusiness. Farm subsidies are corrupt, corporate welfare.
15
Welfare for the "haves" is always a reminder of how twisted our system has become. And then the ever--present racial bias. At least under Obama, things were tilting in the right direction. Now, it's tilting down the drain.
3
African Americans are moving towards Trump more and more now as they realize the lowest Unemployment rate EVER is a result of his policies.
I think your pile of cards is getting very thin about now.
2
@Joe Paper Why is unemployment capitalized?
Americans farmers have received more in federal funds than the auto bailout and the Wall Street bailout. The farmers will never pay the Treasury back but GM did and so did Wall Street. These tariffs are costing the US billions, those markets are never coming back and those farmers will never pay us back. Trump is the worst president ever and must be stopped. Country over party in November. Any dem will do.
15
But they have one difference don't they. They produce something don't they?
2
So if a political decision is made to send factories to China and nobody gets bailed out how come farmers get bailed out?
6
In our state we have a Representative who has a beautiful Hispanic first name. The Republicans are using her name to make fun of the word "socialism". But really, besides the fact that they are ridiculing her name, why don't they see that Trump is actually promoting socialistic programs? Oh no, their pure enjoyment is coming from the fact that they are ridiculing a "disfavored Democratic Congresswoman" who is trying to save our water and our healthcare. With Trump, it is all about pseudo protecting the "whiteness", while he sticks it to the taxpayer in bail outs, taking money from the Pentagon, taking away health insurance benefits, pushing money to charter schools, and letting industry destroy our water and environment.....among other things.
8
I have known personally some of the Midwestern inheritors of vast landgrant farmland. After the hired harvesters have collected their government subsidized crops, they fly to the Southwest in their private planes to spend their winters at the "other" house. I kid you not!
9
Why do we subsidize farmers that are growing product for the Chinese market but give no assistance to companies serving fellow Americans?
8
We know why. So do Trump’s supporters.
1
Yes, Trump likes farmers because they'll vote for him, even though he has cost them the biggest overseas market for their agricultural exports. Now that China is getting its soy beans and hogs from Brazil, and exporting more good to Europe than the United States, what new trade war will the stable genius dream up in his very large brain?
9
Mr. Bouie:
Please include all of the facts:
"The change is projected to end SNAP benefits for nearly 700,000 adults, saving $5 billion — or less than a third of the $19 billion the government has spent so far on farmers affected by the trade war."
SNAP benefits supplied roughly 40 million Americans in 2018, at an expenditure of $57.1 billion.
57 billion is not chump change......and farmers work.
All of these programs were created by "progressives". You can't grouse when America's food is so inexpensive.
3
Why is everything about race? Just to answer the title: every country needs farmers since we all need to eat! Very simple, straightforward answer.
5
Humm..., because farmers actually work, perhaps?
2
Again... the "benevolent" ruler makes his own decisions without the functioning of house or senate. The US Treasury is in his back pocket...
2
Trump loves only the corporate farmers.
4
The United States (as Germany has) is within its rights to control who passes its borders. Relabelling this as the new form of bigotry only dilutes the impact of the word. As distasteful as I find corporate tax expenditures (i.e., farm subsidies), Bouie is struggling to racialize something that is far from being racist.
Arguments like this do more to divide Americans into warring camps between anti-racists and the woman/man on the street who just wants to get through the day.
3
White-oriented support programs are not ipso facto racist.
Globalization turns the normal sense of racial fairness upside down. It does indeed involve the oppression of whites.
Meshing our economy with the rest of the world, globalization, has made for greater production and income than we should otherwise have seen. Isn't that good?
Not quite. The gains are not shared equally: some regions and classes will be injured as a cost of the general social improvement.
This happened to the heart of traditional US industry, centered in the Midwest: the region was devastated as its production was lost to China and other countries. The other side of this sacrifice was that Blue Coast prosperity boomed.
Directly, globalization was an assault on Midwestern industry.
Now, for historical reasons, the Midwest is the whitest of the four US regions.
This means that, globalization is an assault on whites.
Globalization was an intentional government policy. It injured the Midwest just as building an urban park injures those whose houses are torn down to make room.
Now, in the case of the park, we agree that the injured house owners should be compensated.
Yet, the far greater injury, a ruined fourth (plus) of the country, has not been compensated.
Collecting these observations, it is impossible not to say that the rest of the country was benefited by a grievous injury to an overwhelmingly white population.
On this count, some white-directed reparations are in order.
3
@alyosha
how is globalization a gov't policy , rather than a corporate one ?
3
@thostageo
Nixon's opening to China.
The US's pampering the Maoists for forty years.
Granting Stalinist China Most Favored Nation Treatment, while denying it to democratic Russia, which overthrew Stalinism.
GATT-WTO
NAFTA
Milder versions of these for other nations that have replaced US production.
Golly thostegeo, haven’t you noticed that our government has been captured by corporate interests?
So SNAP recipients are being denied government money unless they start working. Farmers are given government money to stop working. And I thought the GOP was against wealth re-distribution!
13
You make a good point, but the problem is more systemic than partisan. The arrangement of the primaries is such that Iowa, an agricultural state if there ever was one, predisposes all candidates ,of both major parties, to pander to agricultural interests. This problem originated in the Great Depression when FDR implemented many of the then embryonic programs that exist to this day.
3
As in many other topical areas, Trump has conned the small farmer and diverted resources to the 1%. "And while the White House trumpeted aid to farmers [to compensate for trade war losses], the Environmental Working Group reports that the top 10 percent of farms — 'the largest and most profitable, industrial scale farms in the country' — received 50 percent of the money. The bottom 80 percent received an average of $5,136." (Katherine van Heuvel, WaPo today) That's some kind of real aid to real people. In a real democracy.
7
The racial and economic decline?
I get the economic decline. Most of them have been doing it to themselves by voting for republicans. But racial decline? Is that a reference to the proportions of the population by race? I suppose I can see it but again its a self inflicted wound. In that case inflicted by choosing to be ignorant about your fellow human being.
All these years of economic strip mining of our country why haven't we heard anyone discuss building a steel mill in the US? A new car factory that bought all of its parts from American factories who made them from scratch? That is what we need. The benefits are more than just profit. It creates self sufficiency for the country and security for the country. It provides for all the infrastructure and schools the GOP have abandoned since the 80's.
The article reminded me a human trait. That is the reaction to reward. Somehow people will try for a reward they have had once or a part of and in some cases imagine the benefit of, far harder than actual results indicates they should. The most obvious example to me is in cocaine use. Basically every use after the first time is an attempt to get that first high which felt so good even though each subsequent use can only ever be less fulfilling than the use immediately preceding it.
As for paying attention to Trump's techniques, it seems the Russians are helping him again. They've done a hack attack on Burisma to find (or plant) evidence about the Biden's.
4
I honestly think the only solution to this problem is concerted liberal migration. Wealthy liberals should seed businesses that have highly educated workers in Fargo, Sioux Falls, Missoula, Cheyenne, Boise, and Anchorage, and liberals of means and choice need to favor places like that--smallish cities with liberal amenities in conservative states--as their residences. Many of these states were once--and not that long ago--much more bipartisan. Their current anti-immigrant racism is not deep-seated or long-lived. And, hey, cold-weather clothing is better than ever these days.
4
The last paragraph of this piece is a perceptive warning. Let's hope most folks got to it, recognized its perception, and prepares accordingly.
11
Oh yes, “All you have to do is deliver pain to disfavored groups, to target them and make a show of it.” The most chilling sentence I’ve read in a long time. One hopes this moral mess we are living in ends, and then this sentence points to new apprentices waiting in the wings learning from the master.
4
Some commentators point out that farmers work. Is it not the case that many of the farmers are working only because of subsidies? That is, they would not make it otherwise? Work that is not profitable would cease under pure free market conditions. So one could say that farmers who depend on subsidies are not much (if at all) different from people who are not working at all in purely economic terms.
Leaving the issue of work v. non-work aside (which is a deserving v undeserving poor argument), we as a society should be asking ourselves explicitly whether government assistance should help the poor (and/or the unprofitable) in general or just some of them and why - i.e. what are the underlying moral (and other) beliefs underpinning our position. This is separate from the role that political expediency plays in who gets helped and who does not (which is obviously enormous). The article does a nice job of bringing these issues to the fore.
18
Straight up vote buying much like bailing out the coal miners pensions and other vote investments.
19
@MGRemus Yes, I disagreed when Obama did it for the UAW and I disagree when Trump does it with coal miners and farmers. It is the way politics appear to work. We need to eliminate all special treatment. Of course, Trump is the only president in modern history to do it for himself. He should reimburse the government for all charges leveled by his hotels and resorts to accommodate his security detail.
5
@MGRemus And on the other side: “free” healthcare, education loan forgiveness, reparations, it goes on forever and all of it is buying votes.
3
T Smith,
Health care is vote buying?
I guess if you aren’t alive you cannot vote.
Education is a social good.
Unless you don’t want an educated citizenry, making sound decisions for the general welfare of all Americans, when they vote.
4
We should all love farmers; not multinational conglomerates posing as independent farmers.
21
@Nature
I totally agree. These subsidies, to the extent they will occur regardless of our economic opinion, certainly should only go to individuals or closely held (family) corporations/LLCs directly engaged in agricultural production. Further, why not require that, instead of ground lying fallow, production continue but the products be donated to feed hungry people?
3
@TDD Yes and totally agree.
Trump doesn't necessarily like farmers. He needs farmers. If reelected we'll see his true feelings when he has no more use for them.
17
So, where does this $19B to pay corp farmers come from? The answer from the Trump administration would be - from the tariffs on the Chinese goods. Tit for tat. And we don't want the emotional issue of farms failing to shortcut the re-elections of republican candidates in those areas.
Nope - the right answer is from the $1.1T deficit - ie, future taxpayers. Our children and grandchildren. Crippling debt that masks the "winners/losers" of the Trump economy. "Winners" - corporate farmers, "losers" - poor people who need SNAP to survive. "Losers" - companies and the American people who have to pay more for imports. "Winners" - South American countries whom China is paying to farm soybeans. "Losers" - the rain forest that is being destroyed for that land.
"Losers" - all of us, when biodiversity is gone, so the Chinese can have a cheap source of soybeans.
32
No, soybean farmers in particular and farmers in general have not been devastated by Trump's trade policy. Soybean prices took a sharp drop in April 2019 as China claimed it would cancel its orders, but prices recovered almost immediately. Prices of the main export crops soybeans, wheat and corn are not high, but the main drop took place around 2014 and nobody is blaming Obama. The USDA projects total farm income in 2019 and onward to be greater than in 2016 and 2017:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/highlights-from-the-farm-income-forecast/
The irresponsible reporting of the media on farm matters, including by pundits, gave an excuse for Trump to reward his farm supporters. The media claim that most benefits will go to big corporate farmers, but by now who can trust their reporting? At this point many small farmers are hanging on by a thread , for reasons not primarily related to Trump's trade policy, and will probably be grateful for any crumbs of subsidy they get.
6
@skeptonomist Great post and nice to see factual data instead of the usual NYT spin on everything Trump.
2
I am aligned with Trump on this issue. Farmers are the backbone in this country and unlike other welfare (food stamps, public housing) recipients in the inner city, farmers actually work.
The author ignores this key distinction.
15
@Eagles Fan thank you for strengthening the point the author is making: white recipients of welfare are good because they work unlike non-white ones who receive benefits and do not work. Needless to say that many recipients of those food stamps and public housing benefits actually work and many have more than 1 job. The difference is that they are not wealthy, like most white farmers, and therefore have no political power.
76
@Eagles Fan According to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities..... the share of all SNAP households that have earnings while participating in SNAP is about 31 percent in 2017. Most SNAP recipients who can work do so. Over half of individuals who were participating in SNAP in a typical month in mid-2012 were working in that month.
17
@Tamara
31% is not even half? In the inner-city it is even lower. I am not sure why anyone thinks 31% is acceptable.
3
The red states love their coastal elite supplied welfare. Their way of saying 'thanks' was to raise my taxes by cutting the SALT deductions I enjoyed. The reason we are more prosperous out here on the coasts is not magic, but because we invest much more in education. Thus the higher local taxes (which are no longer deductible). I don't mind helping bubba out, but he is a sanctimonious, ungrateful and vindictive guy who, given the opportunity, raises my taxes for his own amusement.
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@Chazak
As someone who grew up as an east coaster and moved to the Midwest, I can attest to resentment here; and yet the Midwest does nothing to improve itself by investing in education. They want to keep their local taxes low, complain about the productive east coasters, and claim everyone is taking from them.
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@Chazak
I grew up with farmers who currently plant more Trump signs in their fields than they do corn. Not sure how that's working out for them, but it's definitely hurting me. And it's ironic that the same Republicans who justify cutting corporate taxes under the fiction of saving corporations from "double taxation", have no compunction about enacting the SALT penalty so they can double-tax millions of ordinary people on the taxes they already paid to schools and states. We'll see how that works out for Republicans in 2020.
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@Chazak Well said!
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Farmers get subsidized because it is brutally hard work, very insecure and has high rates of burnout. We want to encourage the production of food in our own country and not be dependent on imports which can be dangerous in times of war and we don't have any ability to control for quality, genetic therapy or pesticides. Intelligent countries like Norway and Switzerland have extremely high subsidizes for their farmers. Look what happened when we started importing cheap honey from China and mostly contaminated with a high percentage of fake sugar syrup. We need to stop strengthening China by giving them our money but not at the risk of bankrupting our ability to produce food. That being said small farmers and certainly black farmers should be especially supported as well as attempts at more green farming practices.
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@Allright
Yes, farming is hard work...especially hard for those who actually do the hard work in the fields. But, is farming harder in the mid-west than in California? Is farming harder on huge farms than small family farms?
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@Allright I'm fine with subsidies, but not because of actions that are not productive, not well thought out.
Those countries you mention do a lot of things different. I agree, we should take note.
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Trump in a nutshell - There is an in-group that is protected by the law but not bound by it, and there is an out-group that is bound by the law but not protected by it.
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It should also be noted that in addition to the lack of support to minority farmers, fully 30% of American farms are currently owned by large investment companies.
In the next decade that number is expected to increase by 92,000,000 acres. The real "family farm" can't compete with these mega land owners who lease out the land to farm workers. And because of their size they are able to gain economic leverage over everything from equipment purchases to seed and water rights..
In essence, Trump's subsidy is another form of corporate welfare masquerading as support for the little guy.
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“Under the new rules, states will have a harder time waiving work requirements for able-bodied adults in high unemployment areas.” The projected savings is $5 billion and there is no downside to those that can earn much more than the SNAP benefits year after year. The $19 billion to farmers was a one-shot adjustment in a high stakes trade war with China. We won thanks to President Trump. Forget the food stamp handouts to the “able-bodied” and the temporary farmers’ compensation, it is all taxpayers that reap the benefits of Trump’s good judgment and amazing economy. The comparison between “handouts” is just a cheep shot by the NY Times Editorial Board. We are all better off under the leadership of President Trump.
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@Eugene Patrick Devany Its NOT a one shot...there are more billions in the pipeline for this year too.
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@Eugene Patrick Devany
Our amazing economy was a gift from Obama to Trump. It was the Obama administration that saved our country from George Bushes’ depression. Under Obama we had many months of growth in employment. Trump only job was to not mess it up. Tariffs have added taxes to goods imported and we had to pay $19 billion out to farmers became of Trumps “good judgment “ in losing farmer’s markets in China. That’s 19 billion added to a deficit that he has blown out of proportion because the top one percenters in our country wanted more welfare. I don’t consider that to be good judgment. I call that greed. And don’t get me started on all the environmental damage this President is causing along with his Republican sycophants. It is a travesty!
Rita from Colorado
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@Eugene Patrick Devany
The economy is great if you're a stockholder, corporation or desperately want a job that pays minimum wage. If you're a poor working class American or a middle-class W-2 wage earner, then the economy will again this year leave you in status quo, without a raise (or with a paltry raise) while your expenses will continue to rise. Of course the answer is to take a second job - likely at minimum wage. Working harder while staying in the same place financially has never been the American dream, but that's the Trump economy for most Americans.
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I was wondering where all the soy beans are grown. According to a google search: "More than 80 percent of soybeans are cultivated in the upper Midwest." Are these perhaps among the "must win" states for presidential election? Once again, google search: "Democrats and Republicans think the swing states for the 2020 presidential election will be in the Midwest -- Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- and the Sun Belt -- Florida, Georgia and Arizona." I would suggest that US taxpayers are financing part of 45's election strategy.
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Not a winning argument here. Democrats generally believe that government should help people who suffer from circumstances beyond their control (like hurricane victims or farmers caught up in a trade war). You can criticize the distribution of the benefits, but the impulse to help farmers is no different than relief for the car industry, or student loan debt, or bad home mortgages.
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@JohnK I think the point is that the trade wars are a self inflicted wound...shouldn't have happened or could have been negotiated with diplomacy instead of bombast and ego inflating grand standing.
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@JohnK The problem is that trump is only helping one group and denying help for other groups.
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Why? Perhaps because the subsidies farmers receive help maintain fair prices and put food on the table, whereas entitlements don't do that.
It's more of an investment in staying alive than welfare.
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@Mark
"...the subsidies farmers receive help maintain fair prices and put food on the table, whereas entitlements don't do that."
Wow, that's ironic. I believe the whole point of SNAP is to put food on the table, but when you drill down to the details of actually helping individual people, then you seem to have a problem?
The farm subsidies--the sum of which dwarfs the cost to bail out the auto industry by 50%--cover up a failed trade policy and was done by decree with no Congressional oversight or debate. It seems that fiscal conservatives only believe in the "Invisible Hand" of the "Free Market" until they don't.
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@Mark Why pay for Trump's self inflicted wound?
Under other circumstances, I'd agree with you.
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These farm welfare bailouts were distributed on the basis of acreage. Farmers that owned large tracts of land got most of the money. Farmers that owned small plots got very little. In other words, those that needed it the most got the least.
This goes right along with standard Republican policy to help the rich and hurt the poor. Trump never was a working class populist. He is a top down, owner supporting, standard tickle down Republican.
Trump's success in hurting those he claims he wants to help just goes to show how powerful racial anxiety is in this country. The white nationalism theme cuts through all else.
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@Bruce Rozenblit Also, many corporations that got huge sums of money from the bailout are based in China (Smithfield) and Brazil (JBS). How does giving huge foreign companies our hard earned taxpayer money make America great?
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Dems and liberals like to argue that Trump only helps the rich. But by capping the real estate tax deduction at $10,000, Trump ended a long-held “mortgage welfare” system. Yes there was screaming and still is, but that was a very progressive move. Why should to government support those who own houses by allowing them to deduct mortgage tax payments but not allow renters to do the same? Fair’s fair but not in this era of tribal politics.
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@Pablo Renters need to take it up with their landlords. The landlord is the one getting the tax deduction.
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@Pablo The reason this is wrong is because it endangers tax revenue for the blue states. It was designed to force down home ownership by making it more expensive and thus to make blue states suffer tax losses. And the additional tax revenue goes to oligarchs as tax cuts, not the red states, which rely on federal tax revenues from the blue states. It's complicated, but this tax increase was clearly designed to punish middle class people in blue states and the states themselves.
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@Pablo But it's "fair" to hand out billions to farmers?
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Isn't state welfare targeted to segments of a nation's economy exactly what Republicans hate and rail against? About European countries?
Aren't handouts to farmers not just welfare, but European style socialism? Stalin style socialism? Creeping Russian communism?
Is it not true now that farmers are the new welfare queens? The new taker class?
Is it also not true that Republicans are dedicated socialists when it comes to the welfare needs of the wealthy? When coal mine companies struggle to make a profit, who is willing to give them a subsidy and cut their costs by allowing them to pollute our rivers and air? When corporations want higher profit margins, who cuts their taxes?
Farmers are not the only welfare class, wealthy tycoons and corporations have been getting tax welfare for decades from the open hands of Republicans. But a woman, not working because she is the caretaker for her elderly parent or child, best not ask for food stamps...she'll get a swift back of the hand from Republicans.
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@JABarry
I might also add,
While Republicans are fine with subsidies to keep coal competitive with other energy sources and happy to deregulate coal burning plants so they don't have to be troubled with polluting our air, those same Republicans are outraged that anyone has the audacity to ask for public funding to help those suffering from the higher air pollution.
Asthma rates in children have gone up, the elderly and ill are advised not to go out when air pollution is high, motorists pay higher gas prices for gas specially formulated because of high levels of air pollution. And Repubs can't be bothered with silly ideas about climate change. Because they fear that would cut into corporate profits.
And how corporate-socialist it is for Republicans to support lower emission standards for car manufacturers. You know, because more pollution in the air is a good thing! For Toyota et al. They can spend less on manufacturing cleaner burning engines and increase their profit margin.
Meanwhile human beings and our earth suffer health consequences. Repubs find humans annoying and ignore us, but Mother Nature is striking back and her anger is won't long be ignored.
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@JABarry
When coal mine companies struggle to make a profit, who is willing to give them a subsidy and cut their costs by allowing them to pollute our rivers and air?'
Let's not forget the savings derived from loosening mine safety regulations. A single mine explosion can and has killed dozens; black lung disables many and cuts short many miner's lives. Funding of miner medical care by compulsory contribution taxes on mining companies is eliminated.
Hey, mines are supposed to make money, not be a charity.
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@JABarry
Conservatives have always supported welfare as long as it doesn’t help “others”
9
I so hope Cory Booker is the Democrats' VP candidate, and so across the country there can be a reasoned discussion on race and racism.
Ok, a reasoned discussion is a bit much to hope for, but a VP debate between Pence and Booker would be priceless.
Hugh
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Farm subsidies were an explicit bribe to Iowan farmers intended to correct damages from Trump's trade war. Trump needs Iowa badly. That the move also contained a large degree of racial animus is hardly surprising.
Despite the injustice though, consider the state of manufacturing. Who isn't Trump subsidizing? Manufacturing continues a steady decline despite Trump's promises in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Manufacturing accounts for 8 percent of US employment compared to agriculture's 3 percent. That 3 percent includes wage employees like the immigrants Trump is trying to deport. The actual number of self-employed farmers is 0.4 percent. Meanwhile, tariffs are decimating steel as well.
Trump's farmers might be happy but there's not a lot of votes there. Manufacturers are by far more determinate. Trump is buying-off negative publicity. He's not actually supporting the voters he needs to win an election. That's a sliver lining we can appreciate.
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Odds are that these payments to Midwestern welfare queens will become a permanent fixture of American politics. Republicans will do anything to preserve their hold on these states, and taking away entitlements is never easy.
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We won't need these payments to farmers when president Sanders or Warren restore something like normalized trade with China and other International trading partners. And you can bet that they won't negotiate with China without a clear list of tangible outcomes that will improve our trading situation. These include opening up china's markets to fair competition and protecting intellectual property. That was the cover story for trump, but of course he doesn't have the patience to follow through on any of it, focusing instead on easy bombastic headlines that stir up his base and do nothing for the United States.
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Map out the Farmers on Trump’s welfare subsidies and overlay with Congressional, Electoral, MAGA rallies. Best to include hog, pork-belly Farmers as well, although swine flu erased Chinas appetite for tariffs on that commodity. Earmarks and patronage system, or is it spoils are alive and well.
Then stump that someone else pays for tariffs as the anvil falls on the silent majority.
10
Rather than handing out 19 billion in aid with no strings attached, the government could have put a few restrictions on the aid (similar to the work requirements for SNAP). Tell farmers that while they are receiving handouts they must stop growing GMO soybeans and corn, using roundup for weeds, insecticides for pests and plant a diversity of cover crops to start healing their soils. That 19 billion could have helped reverse the incredible damage that has been done to the soil by chemical farming rather than biological farming. Regenerative agriculture is the future of farming, why not invest some of those billions towards the future.
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@San Francisco Peaks Or do away with large scale CAFO farming operations which is beyond inhumane.
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@San Francisco Peaks
Once again, the pearl clutching over GMOs. Evidence, please.
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@San Francisco Peaks
Make the bailout funds dependent on not employing undocumented workers.
Surely Trump and his supporters would approve.
Sure, come to Wisconsin! The farms have had Trump/Pence signs up in their yards since 2016 and still going strong.
They’re going to the poorhouse, their kids’ and grandkids’ public schools have been decimated, their lands that have held natural resources for decades don’t account for anything, their chances of healthcare insurance are getting slimmer by the minute, but they still cheer for their Republican Leader, by golly!
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@MIMA - The small family farmer's GOP sentiment in Wisconsin might be changing due to their losses in Trump's fool's errant China negotiations. Only larger farms and Corporations received the taxpayer welfare bail outs. Wisconsin is a huge swing state in the electoral college which Trump will be courting in the next year. He'll be faced with questions about the 13,000 "good paying" FoxConn jobs that seem to have evaporated into thin air. The Democrats have rebuilt their blue wall in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania & Michigan based on voting indicators from 2018 Congressional races. Tony Evers, the new Wisconsin Democratic governor, was also elected as a rebound against the destructive GOP governance of Scott Walker and Trump's policies.
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@Dunca
City folk came out for Evers. Thank goodness. But his hands are tied with our Republican legislature. One dirty trick after another, especially with voting.
At least Walker’s gone! Heard he’s going to be leading Trump’s Wisconsin campaign. Birds of a feather.
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@MIMA
Right-wing propagandists have worked hard for 50 years to ensure this state of affairs. Stockholm Syndrome has nothing on the inexplicable loyalty of working people to a party that conspires against them in so many ways.
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"It’s not a majority, but our election rules (starting with the Electoral College) and the structure of our government (like equal representation of states in the Senate) make it large enough to claim and maintain real political power."
I think Mr. Bouie is exactly right. The Electoral College and representation in the Senate reward rural white America. When we include voter suppression in those states, white rural America becomes over-represented.
It is difficult to break down the old stereotypes that food stamps and welfare are for the lazy. The vast majority of people who want to destroy these things have never suffered in their lives, yet they call themselves Christians and choose to punish the poor.
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On a "Firing Line" program, (the conservative interview series on PBS started by William Buckley and restarted by Margaret Hoover), Paul Ryan and Hoover discussed that 40 percent of food stamp recipients are white and 32 percent are black. They pointed out how much poverty exists in rural areas. And yet rural voters keep voting for Republicans . . .
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@Helene S
Great point. It is just insane how many rural whites continue to vote against their interests. It was the point of Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" from '04.
5
Farm subsidies can help replace the economic losses from tariffs in the short run but tariffs also do a greater harm in future years.
Faced with an unreliable supplier in America, China will seek other less encumbered suppliers like Brazil for its soybeans. And when you lose the market, you loose future ongoing sales even if tariffs were instantly discontinued.
Tariffs, once employed, hang as a threat to these future sales which subsidies will not undo.
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@Doug McNeill Exactly. These markets may be gone for good
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@Marie
Brazil, Russia and Argentina have swooped in, selling soybeans to China.
1
If we don’t help farmers then we risk our future. America loses farm land every year. The reality is that when farmers go under, many times the land is broken up and sold in smaller chunks less suitable for commercial farming.
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@John, the people farming on American soil (with foreign entities owning more than 28 million acres) should be supported. However, this massive bailout should be acknowledged as such and as an unintended consequence of Trump’s disastrous trade war.
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@Harvey I am certainly no fan of the trade war or most of the tariffs. I also don’t want to see farmers hurt in an internal political battle.
4
Actually, you need a better constitution. Under the 18th century model, unpopulated real estate has more political rights than densely populated metropolitan areas. Trump is playing to the electoral college while being protected by the Senate.
This cannot stand.
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@DavidS Sadly, the electoral college itself will stand. But the National Popular Vote Compact - if enacted by enough states (currently 15 + D.C.) - is constitutional and can overcome that anachronism. Will take much work at the state level, and more years, but might succeed in (some of) our lifetimes (it took ~75 years for women to get the vote).
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@DavidS And why would someone in a presidential election not "play to the electoral college?"
1
To the commenter who said it took ~75 years for women to get the vote:
From 1607 landing in Jamestown—or 1776 in Philadelphia—to the 19th amendment in 1920 seems like a bit more than 75 years. (But then, you know, being a girl, maybe I didn’t do the math correctly...)
6
If you didn't know otherwise you would think that a person who had the capability to manipulate stock and commodity prices with his twitter feed and profit from the exercise was doing just that..
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@Jay Buoy Don't forget his tax giveaway to the 1% - no millionaire left behind.
9
Why do we subsidize this business but not other?
Where were the subsidies, price fixing, and public insurance when the bottom dropped out of the year tile and shoe industries in the northeast or south?
The commodity agriculture model only works because the rest of us subsidize it. It is senseless to be a wheat, corn, or soybean farmer and own land only in one river valley in one small part of whatever agricultural belt you belong to. One bad year in that small area can break you.
If this were treated as a business companies would spread the risk across the world owning production in multiple continents to off set losses in one locale.
It’s time to let the market decide, the rest of us paying for a failed economic model is coming to an end.
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@William Mansfield I don't see that that is an answer either. Having lived near farmers when I was younger, many farmers come to it as a way of life they inherited. While this may sound old fashioned, I don't see how you have farming without having men and women who lived the life - know the issues involved. So understand what hoeing a field to get rid of weeds means, or helping a struggling cow give birth.
That said, we cannot expend resources to help farmers and then refuse to help the poor.
25
We subsidize more businesses than anyone would believe with special exceptions built into the tax code for products. We also subsidize wealthy people with mortgage and state and local tax deductions.
14
@William Mansfield we subsidize farmers because if we don't--and there's a war--we instantly lose. That's why. Also, there is emotional attachment to the family farm. After all, it isn't like we can't just buy sugar from Haiti and the Dominican Republic at 95% less than what we pay. However, for the most part this is a cold, national security decision.
1
The farm bailout was twice the size of the auto bailout. And the auto bailout was paid back in full, plus interest. Let’s not fail to mention that the farm bailout was the result of self-inflicted damage. Once farmers resented such handouts .. that too seems to have changed.
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@Deanx
I had no idea of the relative size of the bailouts, and I generally pay attention. Wonder why this has not been more widely discussed? Seem like it should be.
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Of course we need food, but have plenty of autos so it is not quite the same.
3
@JimH The auto bailout was paid back, The farm welfare won't be paid back, What about other industries that the tariffs have affected or do we just bail out and help Trump voters. This is just vote buying pure and simple. Remember the farmers voted for this they got what they wanted now they expect help for their own decision making . If China was so bad why did the farmers even sell to them to start with ?
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