Freedom From Markets

One of my pet peeves is the pork ladled out to US farmers. I have nothing against farmers; I grew up in the south where farming is a way of life, but the largess shown to farmers in this country is obscene. Farm subsidies distort markets and support businesses that should by all rights fail. And these subsidies are not going to a bunch of poor subsistence farmers. They are going to wealthy individuals and large agriculture businesses:

The goal was to target more benefits at farmers who work the land and need financial assistance, while weaning benefits away from the well-to-do. Recent recipients include 92-year-old David Rockefeller, heir to oil-baron John Rockefeller. He received $554,000 in subsidies from 1995 to 2005 for farm operations and land conservation in New York, according to a spokesman for Mr. Rockefeller and government data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, which is lobbying for an overhaul of farm programs. The spokesman says Mr. Rockefeller has reinvested about $600,000 into the community where his farm is located, and that his late wife Peggy loved to farm and raised cattle. "She was on the tractor and everything," he says.

Well if that doesn't warm your heart. I'm paying taxes so a Rockefeller can ride a tractor. The income limit to receive these subsidies is $2,000,000 per year. This is not about helping poor farmers. When will taxpayers finally wake up and realize that the federal government is nothing more than a criminal enterprise that rewards the few at the expense of the many? Damn......