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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (252647)	5/3/2002 11:39:19 AM
From: Bald Eagle	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

Bush and Cheney: Payoff time for farmers WASHINGTON — This is the kind of welfare conservatives love. It doesn't go to black inner-city mothers or Hispanic migrant workers. The federal payouts I'm talking about aren't based on how little income or assets the recipients have. In fact the more those who are eligible for this dole have, the more money they are likely to get. And best of all, this form of government welfare comes with virtually no strings attached. I'm talking about farm subsidies — the federal payments to farmers that Republican congressional leaders publicly said they would do away with in 1996, a promise they quickly — and quietly — reneged on. Instead of shutting the program down, the GOP-led Congress actually has increased the annual payouts from the federal treasury to the bank accounts of some of the nation's biggest farmers. The Freedom to Farm Act was supposed to wean farmers off their dependence on government subsidies. But as quickly as the bill — which ended production controls on farm crops — became law, farmers and their congressional supporters pushed for a resumption of the subsidy payments that the legislation was supposed to gradually end. These payments now total billions every year. All the while this was going on, many of these same conservatives were voting to slash welfare payments and severely limit the amount of time that poor women can receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children. More than $20 billion in subsidies was paid to farmers last year. That's a whopping sum for a program that Congress dealt a deathblow six years ago. Ironically, The New York Times recently reported that many of the farmers who receive federal subsidies use the money to buy more land — to increase the size of their farms — not to help make ends meet. That's understandable, since some of these "needy" farmers rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars before they even receive a subsidy check. During his presidential campaign, George W. Bush promised to end corporate welfare. But, since taking office, he has hawked a national energy policy that pads the bottom line of the energy industry he and Dick Cheney once earned a living from, and a missile defense system that will pump billions of dollars into the defense industry for an anti-missile system that precious few scientists think will ever work. Add to all of this the billions that continue to go to farmers — not the little guy struggling to plant and harvest a crop — but the big farmers who have thousands of acres under cultivation or set aside for grazing. Don't expect the Bush administration to turn off any of these taps. On his way to the White House last year, Cheney was given a multimillion-dollar sendoff by Halliburton, the energy company he headed before joining Bush on the ticket. During the presidential race, defense industry companies pumped millions into Bush's campaign, and farmers were the backbone of the support the Bush-Cheney ticket got from rural America. The knock against Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, is that he used his pardon power to thank financial and political backers in the waning hours of his presidency. Bush and Cheney appear much more impatient to show their gratitude. That's too bad. They are operating as if they will only get one bite at the apple — one four-year term in the White House to pay their political debts. In the process, their brand of conservatism is beginning to look like a gluttonous attempt to funnel billions of dollars into the bank accounts of their friends and supporters. The continuing growth in the farm subsidy program is just the most recent example of how far they are willing to go. Just this month, the White House gave its blessings to a decision by the Republican-led Congress to increase the farm subsidy budget next year another $5.5 billion. At this rate it won't be long before the administration plunges the nation back into the deficit hole that Ronald Reagan and the current president's father, George H. W. Bush, dug during their stints in the Oval Office. Source: USA Today