Weiland: Reform Farm Bill, Focus on Healthy Food

Folks on both sides of the aisle tell me Dr. Kevin Weiland would have gotten creamed if he had run for Congress and brought up his stance against our current farm subsidy program. I say, so what?! You run on principle, and maybe you get beat 90–10 the first time. You run again, get it down to 80–20, then 70–30... and pretty soon, the majority gets what you're talking about!

But hey, Dr. Weiland isn't running for anything, so he's free to start the conversation about why our current "fat farm bill" is unhealthy for America right now:

We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on farm subsidies since 1996 with almost 80 percent going to the production of four major groups: food grains, feed grains, oilseeds and cotton. The food industry has profited by the mere fact that it is relatively inexpensive to fatten cattle with government-subsidized grain and to buy cheap industrial food additives such as flour, corn starch, corn syrup and soybean oil for its products.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service Food Review, Volume 25, Issue 3, "nutritious foods have increased in price by nearly 38 percent" while the price of high-calorie items such as soft drinks has decreased by 25 percent since the inception of the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996. The price for this cheap food comes at the expense of our health, however.

We have more than 33 million people in the United States alone with the type of diabetes seen in people who are overweight. Additionally, our government health agencies are concerned about the epidemic of childhood obesity [Dr. Kevin J. Weiland, "Federal Farm Subsidies Fattening America," that Sioux Falls paper, 2010.05.14].

Fattening America? Well, Kristi Noem doesn't look much worse for wear....

Blue Dogs like Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota continue to defend the status quo, where the focus of the farm bill is on propping up corporate farms rather than feeding Americans good food. But like it or not, our farm policy supports crappy food and crappy health outcomes. Even anti-government Republicans like Senator John Thune disguise corporate welfare as a "farm safety net" that favors the wrong crops and makes neither economic nor environmental sense.

Dr. Weiland is right: we need a broader conversation about farm policy. Farm policy shouldn't be just about production and profit any more than energy policy should be. Farm policy should involve all stakeholders: farmers, eaters, doctors, and everyone else affected by the externalities of unhealthy industrial agriculture.

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Bonus Web Reading:

• Weiland on why grass-fed beef is healthier than feedlot beef
  
• Research showing red meat and processed meat increase your risk of dying (the researchers do not break down differences between free range and feedlot).
  

Obama to Bailout Execs: You Work for Us!

My friend Kerry often cites the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

President Obama is ready to apply that Golden Rule to the corporations putting their hands out for bailout money. Yesterday the President announced a plan to require big bailout recipients to cap their executive pay at $500K. Obama's rules would also limit severance pay. Execs can still receive stock options as compensation, but they can't cash those stock options in until the company has paid back the money we taxpayers lent them. How's that for motivation to get the company in the black again?

Says President Obama to anyone worried about socialism, Marxism, or simple intrusion in the free market:

This is America.... We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers [President Barack Obama, quoted in Stephen Labaton and Vikas Bajaj, "Obama Calls for 'Common Sense' on Executive Pay," New York Times, 2009.02.04].

On MPR Midday yesterday, a discussion of public ethics turned to corporate ethics (oxymoron jokes welcome). On the executive salary cap, someone offered the predictable party line that corporate exectuives deserve all the compensation the market will bear, since they generate wealth and are the "heroes" of the economy.

But golly gee, if your corporation needs a government bailout, what kind of capitalist hero are you? Other welfare recipients have conditions placed on their federal assistance; corporate executives should be no different.

Execs, you take our money, you work for us. And at $500K, you're still earning more than our CEO and board of directors.

Farm Subsidies: Socialist Redistribution for Wealthy Farmers?

Bernie Hunhoff, one of the few blogging types who also manages to be successful in politics (congrats, Bernie!), generally stays away from politics in his Editor's Notebook blog over at South Dakota Magazine. I appreciate that: Bernie's adventures around South Dakota help keep us sane and grounded.

But when Hunhoff does touch on politics online, he makes it count. His Monday post points us toward Michael Grunwald's Time commentary on five things America needs to get back on track. Number 5 on Grunwald's list? "A sane farm policy."

What's insane about current farm policy? Says Grunwald:

U.S. agriculture policy is a jumble, but the basic goal is simple: redistribute money to big commodity farmers. The median farmer's net worth is five times the median American's, and the top one-tenth of farmers get three-fourths of the subsidies. It's a welfare program for the mega farms that use the most fuel, water and pesticides, emit the most greenhouse gases, grow the most fattening crops, hire the most illegals and depopulate rural America [Michael Grunwald, Time, 2008.11.17; cited by bernie Hunhoff, "A Farm 'Ouch' in Time," South Dakota Magazine: Editor's Notebook, 2008.11.10].

Redistribution of wealth? Hiring illegals? Destroying rural America? Sounds like a critique from John McCain, not the liberal media.

Check out Hunhoff's post, and give some thought to whether the $307 billion farm bill really is welfare for the ag-industrial complex.

Palin: Crony Politics and Corporate Welfare for TransCanada

It just keeps getting worse for John McCain's ill-chosen running mate. I told you back in August that Governor Sarah Palin was in bed with TransCanada, handing them 500 hundred million taxpayer dollars not to actually build a natural gas pipeline, but just to seek customers and federal approval for maybe building a pipeline later.

Now the paid journalists at Associated Press uncover the whole unseemly process behind Palin's handouts for Big Canadian Oil: bidding rules crafted to favor TransCanada, TransCanada lobbyists working for Palin, improper communications between the governor and bidders, and all bidders but TransCanada disqualified on technicalities.

But here's the kicker: reporters Justin Pritchard and Garance Burke find six confidential sources and sworn testimony from Palin's pipeline team leader and former TransCanada lobbyist Marty Rutherford that four years ago, TransCanada was willing to build the pipeline with no $500M subsidy from Alaska.

So, Governor Palin redistributes income to a foreign corporation to entice the corporation to do something it already said it can do without government subsidy. "Share the wealth," indeed.

Farm Bill -- Still Plenty of Corporate Welfare

It's always nice to see some South Dakota conservatives and liberals finding common ground. Lake County organic farmer and ag activist Charlie Johnson submitted the following comment to Rick Knobe's Viewpoint University the other day:

I wonder if you share my opinion that the 2007 (or better put) 2008 Farm Bill is a legislative vehicle for personal greed not good policy.

Also I'm sure that you agree, we don't need to be developing a "means test" for receiving farm payments. Just implement a hard cap that no individual will receive assistance beyond the cap regardless of how large they want to get. Or if you can't swallow that, just eliminate the subsidies. When farmers and farm groups lobby from a position of greed rather than focus on issues like beginning farmer, nutrition, conservation, credit policy, the only people they continue to convince (or fool) is themselves.

Charlie tells me that Rick Knobe, a good conservative, agreed. Charlie also notes that the Center for Rural Affairs would like to see this farm bill vetoed. (See CFA's Dan Owens on what happened when President Eisenhower vetoed the 1956 farm bill.)

Both Obama and Clinton support the pending farm bill: Obama says "The bill is far from perfect, but with so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good." Clinton takes the same line and chides McCain and Bush for wanting the bill vetoed.

Is a rotten farm bill better than no farm bill? Obama supporter Dennis Wiese spouts the corporate line that subsidies to rich farmers are good for small-town economies and suggests that Obama "would not believe that the funds that have been spent have been wasted." The compromise necessary to crank out a politically viable farm bill producing more handouts for the rich ag-industrial interests, which Professor Schaff helpfully enumerates. Ugh. It reminds me how much I miss Dennis Kucinich, who, by the way, showed his unflagging support of the little guy by voting against the farm bill.