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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (184593)	3/12/2004 8:32:50 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575914

I am all for cutting subsidies to them but not to the traditional, mom-and-pop farmers. Would you have supported all the mom-and-pop farmers that we had 100 years ago, or 50 years ago? What about all the makers of wagon wheels and horseshoes that went out of business? Oh stop........I support every mom and pop, working farm in this country. If they have gotten this far, then they must be survivors. But if we did indeed stop subsidizing agribusiness it probably would result in a reduction of subsidies so your plan might be better then what we have now. Of course, it would. OTOH agribusiness might get creative in how it qualifies for the subsidies, making itself look like a lot of mom and pop farms, perhaps by not owning the land but having controlling it through contracts that "mom-and-pop" farmers sign in exchange for getting farm land and equipment. Not only would this undermine the "don't let the subsidies go to agribusiness" idea but it would also make the agribusinesses less efficient. Another problem I have with the idea, is that not all small farms are "mom-and-pop" farms. I've read stories about news anchors and politicians who received agricultural benefits because they owned a farm or a ranch that existed just to get the benefits. It seems to me that the expense caused by farm subsidies is relatively minor when compared to other sections of the budget. ted