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Disarm the arsenalNo one has ever heard me say a positive thing about a subsidy. In fact, quite honestly, I believe that over the long haul American agriculture would be stronger if subsidies would go away. But I am more interested in the truth about subsidies surfacing rather than the massive amount of misinformation that currently exists. Here is my example: Simply go to your favorite search engine on the Internet and type in "U.S. subsidy." You will get 13.9 million websites (literally) that all seem to be talking about that evil industry of "agriculture" and the massive subsidies sent the farmers' way. Guess what? "Food" could quite possibly be the least subsidized sector of our lives. Last year, the total U.S. crop and dairy subsidies were estimated to tally only about $7.5 billion due to relatively strong crop prices. In 2005 when prices were lower, farmers racked up subsidies of more than $16.4 billion. If we were to divide the payments to farmers as a subsidy by the number of American citizens, currently 308 million, you would find the taxpayer is paying a $25-per-year investment in maintaining domestic food production. OK, you decide--is it worth a mere $25 per year to keep farmers farming? Most people pay more than that each month for their television service. What are other industries getting in terms of subsidies? I am not even sure how to total up all of the energy subsidies currently being paid out. I do know that it was reported in December that Exxon received $3 billion in the name of research for "renewable energy" supplies. Excuse me! One company is getting nearly half of what all the farmers in total received, but that doesn't make the news. The Environmental Law Institute, in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, recently released a report about energy subsidies. Fossil fuels benefited from approximately $72 billion over the seven-year period of the study, while subsidies for renewable fuels totaled only $29 billion. More than half of the subsidies for renewables--$16.8 billion--are attributed to corn-based ethanol, the climate effects of which are hotly disputed. Of the fossil fuel subsidies, $70.2 billion went to traditional sources--such as coal and oil--and $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage, which is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Incidentally, the ethanol subsidy has gone to the blenders of ethanol and gas not the farmers that grow the crops for the biofuels. In the first full accounting of the 28-year-old Airport Improvement Program, USA TODAY recently ran a story that general aviation has received the benefit of a congressional subsidy to the tune of $15 billion. While everybody benefits from subsidies for "food" and "energy," how many Americans use airports? I would guess less than one-third of all Americans fly or have flown. What about the most recent subsidy that we can't seem to stop giving? The Center for Economic and Policy Research says the bailout has allowed "too-big-to-fail" banks to pay significantly lower interest rates than those paid by smaller banks. According to one estimate, that's meant a subsidy for the nation's 18 largest bank holding companies of $34.1 billion a year. We have a pretty good idea what the figure might end up like with health care subsidies. I have a feeling that if we don't all pay attention and continue to send messages to our elected officals, this giant might carve a new definition for what a government subsidy is. Then there is the store I never shop at but millions of Americans, who claim to be fed up with farm subsidies, flock to every chance they get. It is well documented that over $1 billion in government subsidies has gone into transforming discounter Walmart from a regional discount store operator into the world's largest retailer. Who is complaining about that? So, while I don't like farm subsidies one bit, I dislike even more the misinformation about government subsidies in this country. And if you were thinking that a $25-per-year investment per person in the United States is just way out of line, then think about consumers in the EU who currently invest $100 per person per year. The most important thing I have learned in my research about government subsidies seems to be the perception that "good subsidies are the ones that I get, and bad subsidies are the ones that go to other people." Let's not let misinformation about farm subsidies be another tool in the arsenal against the backbone of American independence--agriculture.
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