Cross-posted in Immizen.com with links to sources.
There were various attempts by Democrats in the Senate this week to save money that would have reduced corporate welfare and spared the poorest Americans from cuts to programs such as Food Stamps.
Senators Jean Shaheen (D-NH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced an amendment that would save up to $3.5 billion every single year by repealing and reforming various subsidies, tariffs, and other price supports that prop up the price of sugar on behalf of the Sugar Lobby.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists some of the poorest Americans, by cutting “guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million.”
Both amendments were defeated and as usual mostly along party lines with the GOP voting in favor of those who do not need government help, the wealthy. And as always it is the poor, who do not have powerful lobbyists at their disposal, who lost, while the Sugar Lobby maintained its government favors.
It does not even make sense that the GOP fights so hard to continue the spending for food subsidies when some recipients of those subsidies apparently do not want them! Jeff and Karen Zuck, who own a 160-acre, 117-head dairy farm, received $44,549 in grants in 2009, during Barack Obama’s first year in office. It was almost twice their previous high in 2002, and was a consequence of the heightened subsidies the Obama administration rushed to deliver as milk prices plummeted in the recession. The Zucks, however, who say they disliked Obama even before he became president, say they don’t want the subsidies and have endorsed the Paul Ryan budget instead, which cuts $30 billion in farm subsidies over the years.
Well, I am all in agreement with the Zucks. Let's not give them any subsidies if they don't want them!
It is an unwanted side effect of Big Money's attempt to demonize Obama and government spending that some GOP constituents actually are willing to cut spending that benefits them personally.
So how come, even when some farmers don't want those subsidies, that the government keeps handing them out, instead of redirecting that money to other more useful programs?
The Zucks have a good sized farm but they lack lobbying power, which is the power that bigger farmers and food corporations wield in Washigton. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney explained last week, Big Sugar has all sorts of deep connections to Washington:
The lobby for the sugar program is strong. Most famously, the Fanjul family in Florida, owner of Florida Crystals, are deeply embedded in Washington politics…
Pepe Fanjul is a Republican booster. In January, Pepe and his wife hosted a $2,500-a-head Palm Beach fundraiser for Mitt Romney.
This is the reality in America where the laws are written by politicians who represent Big Money. The less powerful or fortunate have no voice or say in the process.