Another Wisconsin Newspaper Hates the Farm Bill

I'm thinking of starting a collection of these. Believe the count is at around all of them...

Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A temporary solution to deal with an emergency."

That's how aid to farmers was described when it was introduced during the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt. And in the 1930s, in the Dust Bowl and Depression years, aid for struggling farmers was necessary and right. But that was then, and this is now.

Now, aid to farmers means sending taxpayer money to millionaire farmers and to those who aren't really farmers. It means major funding for farmers who grow five row crops - wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton - and no subsidies for 60% of all farmers. It means that three-fourths of all subsidies go to 10% of farms. It means sending $1.1 billion, according to federal figures cited in a recent Time magazine article, to dead people.

And it means spending a proposed $286 billion or more of taxpayer money over the next several years in farm bills pending in Congress. The proposed bills - heralded by supporters as reform - in fact do very little to reform the current system and much to simply perpetuate a giant government giveaway program, welfare for corporate agriculture.

Consider these items about how Wisconsin benefits from the current system, according to the Environmental Working Group:

• 52% of all farmers and ranchers do not collect government subsidy payments in Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• Among subsidy recipients, 10% collected 62% of all subsidies amounting to $2.44 billion over 11 years.

• Recipients in the top 10% averaged $19,786 in annual payments between 1995 and 2005. The bottom 80% of the recipients saw only $817 on average per year.

The farm support system no longer even helps those it was meant to help.

Read the rest.

The House Farm Bill -- worked on by Steve Kagen (D-Appleton), to boost his re-election chances -- is a joke, the Senate Farm Bill -- worked on by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Milwaukee Bucks) -- is a nightmare.

This thing deserves to be vetoed, and then re-written with an eye on Agriculture for the early 21st Century, not the early 20th Century.

Tainted Beef Has Wisconsin Ties

Yeah, this is never good.

Frozen ground beef patties produced at a Butler, Wisconsin facility are being pulled off Sam's Club store shelves nationwide after four kids in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area became ill with e-coli-related illness.

The plant is owned by beef producer Cargill - spokesman Mark Klein says the company has been cooperating with state and federal health and agriculture officials.

Sam's Club is owned by Wal Mart. The frozen patties were sold under the name American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties.

The frozen patties have an expiration date of Feb. 12, 2008. Cargill asks consumers to either return any patties purchased after August 26 to the store, or throw them away.

Butler is in Waukesha County.

And since I've been told in the comments that I only post on Steve Kagen-related items, I guess I'm going to have to see if I can connect this to him some how.

Gosh, I hope this isn't too far a stretch.

A provision in the House version of the Farm Bill would allow state-inspected meat to cross state lines. Currently, only federally inspected beef can be sold out of state.

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer says the recall of 22-million pounds of tainted beef justifies maintaining federal inspection, “Can you imagine the timing of this when we are seeing almost every day more and more of these recalls?”

Wisconsin Democrat Steve Kagen proposed the amendment. He thinks the criticism is unwarranted, “I don’t think we’re doing away with any safeguards. As long as the meat packer or meat processor meets or exceeds Wisconsin standards and the federal standard, the consumer has nothing to worry about.”

Boxer says she is willing to stay on the floor indefinitely to stop the bill from passing in the Senate.

Yeah, maybe I am grasping at straws here.

'This [Farm Bill] is the Very Best We Could Do in Committee'

- Rep. Steve Kagen, M.D. (D-Appleton) July 21, 2007 in the Appleton Post-Crescent

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this is the look of "the very best."

The red dots are people deemed "farmers" who collect subsidy checks greater than $250,000 a year. The big red dots are those getting checks in essence of $2 million.

These are the new numbers under "the very best" the House Ag Committee could do. (HT: The Corner)

The farm bill passed by House Democrats in July would continue giving millionaires farm subsidies (setting the income threshold for payments at $1 million a year, and keeping loopholes in place that allow some making much more to qualify). The Bush administration has proposed sharply reducing the income threshold to $200,000 a year and ending many of those loopholes. That would reduce the number of subsidy recipients by less than 40,000 (of the current million or so recipients).

For the best analysis on the 2007 Ag Bill, please read the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl, a Wisconsin-Madison graduate.

The 2007 Ag Bill is a joke. Editorials across the nation from the Washington Post to the Wisconsin State Journal have called it as such.

Some have called it what it truly is: More of the same.