Cut food stamps to pay for farm subsidies?

[ugonow]

"The House Agriculture Committee endorsed a letter this week to Budget Chairman Paul Ryan arguing that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans purchase food, would make a better target for cuts than automatic subsidies to farms.

The move comes as food prices are rising -- the Department of Agriculture expects overall food prices to rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year -- making it harder for the beneficiaries of SNAP to stretch their existing benefits, even as farmers profit from the tightening market. Critics across the political spectrum have called agricultural subsidies wasteful and unnecessary, and they question the logic of maintaining them as lawmakers hunt for budget cuts.

"Conspicuously missing from the list of mandatory spending cuts the Agriculture Committee has made or is proposing to make are commodity subsidies, and specifically the $4.9 billion in direct payments that are automatically paid out each year regardless of whether a person farms,” said Jake Caldwell, the director of agricultural policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “It is shortsighted of the Committee to suggest cuts to SNAP, particularly as food prices are on the rise, Americans are spending more than 10 percent of their household budget on food, and more people are enrolled in the food stamp program than ever before."

President Obama has endorsed cuts in agricultural subsidies as a way to lower the deficit without targeting essential programs, and lawmakers from both parties, like Ryan, R-Wis., have expressed similar opinions.

But the Agriculture Committee is dominated by members of Congress from farm states; Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has reported $445,714 in political contributions from the agricultural industry during the course of his career, and ranking Democrat Collin Peterson of Minnesota reports $809,097 in career donations." nationaljournal.com/ag-committee-supports-cuts-to-food-assistance-not-farm-subsidies-20110321

[Deleted]

I guess politicians tend to get more farm subsidies than food stamps (or WIC)

[safeharbor37]

Farm subsidies are good examples of government programs which were passed with the best of intentions and which no doubt had beneficial effects at the time. The problem is that when the programs are no longer necessary [or desirable] they not only continue, but grow. [True of virtually all government programs]
I suspect that most people don't realize that most of the people who benefit from farm subsidies are either millionaires, multi-millionaires or are "part time" farmers with the primary intent to exploit "farm subsidies" [the same is true of most "Green" subsidies]. Most think that poor, hard working farmers, struggling for existence are the beneficiaries. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Farm subsidy has become just another government pork barrel program to garner votes and contributions for the kind of politicians who pander to labor unions for the same reason.

[EVT1]

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/interactives/farmaid/