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Help Local Farmers ~ Please Read...

A friend of mine, and fellow Homesteadblogger (Hunnicutt), sent me this e-mail.  Following this request would GREATLY HELP small, family farmers!!

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

President Bush has vetoed the bloated, special-interest Farm Bill.  This is a victory for you, me, and all taxpayers!  But now I need your help to preserve this key win. 

I urge you, before you do anything else today, tell your Senators and Representative to sustain President Bush’s veto of H.R. 2419, the 2008 Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill passed by Congress and vetoed by President Bush fails to provide any significant reform of the federal government’s outmoded, inefficient, and costly agricultural programs.  This Depression-era web of subsidies, price and supply controls, and import restrictions long ago outlived its justification. 

Rather than assisting small family farms, federal agricultural policies overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest farmers and mega-agribusinesses - at the expense of American taxpayers and consumers like you and me! 

If Congress overrides President Bush’s veto, the 2008 Farm Bill will continue to dole out direct payments to farmers without any regard to commodity prices or a farmer’s income.  Sixty percent of these payments go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients.  Married couples who farm and have adjusted gross income (AGI) of $1.5 million will continue to receive subsidies, as will people with AGI of $500,000 who are not even full-time farmers! 

The bill also creates a new “permanent disaster fund” to the tune of $3.8 billion.  A real disaster for taxpayers, most farmers, and the environment, such a fund will encourage planting on land that is prone to floods, droughts, and other catastrophes.  Even more outrageous, most of these payments will go to the same farmers who already receive the bulk of the direct subsidy payments.

With 2008 net farm income forecast to reach $92 billion - 51 percent above its 10-year average - and commodity prices soaring, this Farm Bill will cost taxpayers a whopping $300 billion over the next five years! 

As a consumer, you will also pay.  Each year, sugar price supports alone cost us all $1.9 billion in higher prices at the grocery counter - not only for sugar, but also for sugar-containing products, like cereal, baked goods, and candy.  The 2008 Farm Bill not only increases the support price for sugar, it guarantees domestic producers an 85 percent share of the U.S. market.  Any excess supply from imports, which could be available for food production, would be auctioned by the government to ethanol facilities at a cost to taxpayers of $400 million annually. 

Congress should have taken this opportunity to scrap the archaic farm subsidy system and replace it with a modern revenue insurance program providing a real safety net for farmers when revenue falls.  Instead, lawmakers chose to kowtow to powerful agribusinesses by continuing to dole out huge payments to wealthy farmers who don’t need them.  Some farmers receive taxpayer-provided subsidies in excess of $1 million annually.

Make no mistake about it.  President Bush was completely justified in vetoing this disastrous Farm Bill.  Now, help us sustain his veto.  Tell your Senators and Representative today that as a taxpayer and consumer you’re tired of shouldering the burden for agricultural subsidies that benefit wealthy farmers and mega-agribusinesses!

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Schatz
President

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The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the nation's largest taxpayer watchdog organization with more than one million members and supporters nationwide. CCAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that lobbies for legislation to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  For more information about CCAGW, visit www.ccagw.org.  Make a contribution today to help CCAGW wage this battle to sustain the President's veto of the Farm Bill!