Its a beautiful March morning to drop a thought
bomb:
"Good" farmers save for a rainy day. "Good"
farmers don't base their financial planning on
government handouts. And that's what Ag I&S
really amounts to.....tax dollar handouts. Crop
Insurance is already government subsidized, too.
Farmers cannot defend ag welfare by endorsing
the survival of only "good" farmers. If you do,
you are really approving support of governments
with a central planning agenda; support of
governments who pick and choose winners
through subsidy, instead of guaranteeing an even
playing field to compete.
Certainly all governments have tried to manage
agriculture. Meddle. Impose. Regulate. Choose.
Institutionalize. In Argentina, for years they taxed
agriculture. In Canada, we tax our florist and
electrician to subsidize agriculture.
Lets grow up.
Taxpayer subsidization of arbitrarily chosen
preferred income levels is the crassest of all
welfare, a political practice which the diehards
would probably defend at any level, including an
annual global tax levy presented soley to Google
for assuring them future suceess, as long as a
political donation was returned in the mail.
Any "good" farmer worth his salt will encourage
his farm organization to lobby to end all
agricultural welfare that takes money out of the
pockets of plumbers and writers and derrick
workers.
Dollar-propping certain groups at the expense of
others is what got the G20 into the deep water we
have to swim out of. Governments borrow money
to dish out to farmers. Can you morally,
financially or socially defend this practice? Have
we learned nothing?
Some farmers, indeed, have come to view their
fellow farmers as dispensible, rather like sizing up
the herd to see which cow to shoot in the fall.
Is there a growing brand of scorn and entitlement,
nurtured by unearned taxdollars, which enforces
the notion of the "good" farmer's indispensibility?
If the barn cat creeps up to the step & meows for
cream, and gets it, he returns every day, and
soon becomes pampered, lazy, and preening.
But dont forget he'll freeze cold-dead in the barn
when its forty below and the new landlord cuts the
grocery budget and exclaims, "He's fat and lazy.
Let him eat mice".
Beat me with your pen, Pars
bomb:
"Good" farmers save for a rainy day. "Good"
farmers don't base their financial planning on
government handouts. And that's what Ag I&S
really amounts to.....tax dollar handouts. Crop
Insurance is already government subsidized, too.
Farmers cannot defend ag welfare by endorsing
the survival of only "good" farmers. If you do,
you are really approving support of governments
with a central planning agenda; support of
governments who pick and choose winners
through subsidy, instead of guaranteeing an even
playing field to compete.
Certainly all governments have tried to manage
agriculture. Meddle. Impose. Regulate. Choose.
Institutionalize. In Argentina, for years they taxed
agriculture. In Canada, we tax our florist and
electrician to subsidize agriculture.
Lets grow up.
Taxpayer subsidization of arbitrarily chosen
preferred income levels is the crassest of all
welfare, a political practice which the diehards
would probably defend at any level, including an
annual global tax levy presented soley to Google
for assuring them future suceess, as long as a
political donation was returned in the mail.
Any "good" farmer worth his salt will encourage
his farm organization to lobby to end all
agricultural welfare that takes money out of the
pockets of plumbers and writers and derrick
workers.
Dollar-propping certain groups at the expense of
others is what got the G20 into the deep water we
have to swim out of. Governments borrow money
to dish out to farmers. Can you morally,
financially or socially defend this practice? Have
we learned nothing?
Some farmers, indeed, have come to view their
fellow farmers as dispensible, rather like sizing up
the herd to see which cow to shoot in the fall.
Is there a growing brand of scorn and entitlement,
nurtured by unearned taxdollars, which enforces
the notion of the "good" farmer's indispensibility?
If the barn cat creeps up to the step & meows for
cream, and gets it, he returns every day, and
soon becomes pampered, lazy, and preening.
But dont forget he'll freeze cold-dead in the barn
when its forty below and the new landlord cuts the
grocery budget and exclaims, "He's fat and lazy.
Let him eat mice".
Beat me with your pen, Pars
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