Crop insurance juicy target in ‘fiscal cliff’ deal
December 15, 2012 at 10:44 am in Grand Forks Herald
Rural lawmakers worry that $9 billion in annual federal crop insurance subsidies are an easy target for spending cuts in a “fiscal cliff” deal so they’re shopping around for a late compromise on a farm bill to protect them. Continue Reading
I really don’t like the idea of food stamps being in the farm bill. If it were up to me I would break this bill down into more manageable programs.
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I am ambivalent at best about going over the fiscal cliff. As I have said before, it might be the best thing in the long run for the American economy. Real spending cuts instead of smoke & mirrors. Both sides of the isle & no sacred cow left undamaged.
The budget may have been balanced for 30 min under Clinton once, but I can’t recall the last time anyone to a meaningful cleaver to it.
The best part of the cliff: no NIMBY. I get so tired of people who tout ND economic genius then insist their access to the federal teat be left unfettered
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Correct. If we go over the cliff, along with no farm bill, everyone takes a hit and some real spending cuts occur in the budget, rather that each special interest trying to preserve their benefit, subsidy, tax break or whatever. Re: the farm bill, as far as I can recall, we go back to the last permanent farm legislation from 1947. Considering that some individuals and groups want to turn back the clock, they are going to get their wish. It will be interesting to see how they like it.
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I agree. But I also think they need to start with the largest budgets and cut the largest amount and work their way down from there.. Use a graduated approach. If you have 22% of the overall budget expect a 20% cut in your funding, if you are 1% of the budget you get 5% over your overall funding cut. That way programs aren’t eliminated and the government would have to function more like a business in that it would have to live within a means.
From there they need to work on a balanced budget and that requirement needs to become a constitutional amendment. So that no other congress can take the success and flush it down the toilet.
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As far as cutting the military, overseas military operations should be cut first.
The Pentagon has the military all over the planet.
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To add to this… (sorry it should have been in the last post)
We have to cut large out of the budget.. With the 2011 numbers for the Health and Human Services and the Military roughly around 1T each, if they loose 20% or 30% that is a long ways to making that number. We can’t cut what we have to pay for what we borrowed so that is out.. So next in line is then is Argiculture at 100B, cutting ALL of that is only a drop in the bucket to what we really need. Next is Vet Affairs.. I have stated in the past we owe our veterans a lot more then we give them.. But unfortunately like I said, everyone is going to have to give. This needs to be rolled into the Pentagons budget and they need to provide for the soldiers that they hired and injured. Department of Homeland Security, not sure why they are even needed. We have the FBI for that. Send them packing. They suck at responding to tragedies anyway. etc etc etc.. But if you start at 30% at the top and end at 5% at the bottom everyone gives.
Funny enough it kind of fits in line with the big O’s tax policy… The Rich (or in this case Health and Human Services and the Pentagon) should loose more, just like how he wants to tax those that make the most more.. Fair is fair.
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The above should be below FN’s 7:55 post.. Guess I’m getting tired.
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There is no business that is the size of our government. Not anywhere on the face of this planet. Not even GE, IBM or 3M. Basic business rules don’t apply. There are to many cogs in the wheel. Do you cut research? Research leads to better drugs, things like memory foam mattresses, cell phones etc et al. They all were part of the military, NASA budgets at one time. Key thing is though with things like that, they have to develop a civilian application. Memory foam was for the chairs that the astronauts sit in. Cell phones, military radio technology.
While ‘entitlements’ are the fashionable whipping boy, what do you cut? Food stamps? What in the civilian sector will take over? The local food banks in Fargo are stretched so thin it isn’t even funny. Welfare? Simply put those people out on the street? You’ll eliminate half of Goldmark’s income. Farm support? Ready to pay more than you already do for food?
It isn’t as simple as just cutting off the funding.
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You are dancing around the central point Mav: we cannot continue as is. The status quo is no longer feasible. We have to cut somewhere. Where do we start? There is absolutely no argument someone is going to be hurt. The alternative is we all get hurt (a real depression, like the 1930s where 25% of the population was out of work and sociopaths were heroes).
Doing nothing is not an option. Someone is going to take it in the shorts, there is no doubt about that. What is left to be decided is who?
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Your idea to cut the largest budget the most looks good at first glance, but drill it down: that means social security and medicare take the largest hit, followed by medicaid. Then comes defense (we spend twice as much on social security, medicare, and medicaid than defense).
I would prefer people in power who are able to look at needs and beyond the next election (the GOP has already said they will do whatever it takes to get the house back in 2014, they will gladly bankrupt the nation if it looks like that will work) to make some hard choices.
Since the people we pay to do the job are proving incapable, thank God the dead man trigger of the fiscal cliff was included in the last compromise.
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No 1 is Health and Human Services and No 2 is the military No. 3 is the interest we pay.. You look at the totals from that point down.. The Farm program is a FRACTION of a Percent of the Defense Budget.
I didn’t dance around the issue at all, it was addressed in the first post. Every program looses funding to a certain extent. But 20% of a million dollar budget (which is what some of the fledgling research actually gets) is a lot harder to swallow then what the Pentagon gets. I think we can go with 8 new ships this year instead of 10. Or only 30 new fighters instead of 50.
I’ve paid into SS my whole life. I have NO fantasies that I’ll ever get to collect. My older brother and sisters generations have screwed up the government to much for that ever to happen.
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I agree with most of your numbers except VA. They fought. They sacrificed. They earned what they get. The VA budget will have to double in the next 25 years to keep up. I do not have a problem with that.
I agree: we have 12 Nimitz carriers. No one else even has 1. We have breathing room. Also quit mandating what the services don’t want or need. Quit wasting money so you can get re-elected. The Pentagon does not want or need any more tanks. We already have 300 in mothballs. Yet, they are required to keep buying them because that is what the law says.
SS age increase 67 immediately, then 70 in 10 years.
This is doable.
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I think it already is 70 for anyone born in 1966 or after. 67 for anyone 1958 to 1963. its 66 for ones born 1943-1954 to recieve full social security retirement.
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While nobody wants to take a cut from the Federal Budget, it is going to happen.
46 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. It is unsustainable to keep spending this way.
I really do not want to admit it, but the Tea Party was right about federal spending: Cuts are needed.
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Wouldn’t it would be great if the government covered every small business the way they cover the farmers.
The reason the food stamp is included with the farm bill is they are both a form of welfare.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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No they included it in the farm bill so that the representatives from the large cities would have a reason to vote ‘FOR’ funding of farmers.. You take care of their poor people, they ensure if your farmers have a bad year they don’t go bankrupt.
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.. but you are correct, they are both forms of welfare.
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What about the 4 billion dollars spent on the sugar program?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Once again, The Sugar Program Is a NO COST PROGRAM, It costs the federal budget 0.00 dollars.
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Do the Sugar Beet Farmers recieve sFederally subsidized crop insurance to cover their beet crops?
What about disaster payments? If the sugar beets do not grow or become damaged (hail, heavy rains, etc.), does the Sugar Beet farmer get disaster assistance from the Federal Government?
What about preventive planting? If the Sugar Beet farmer does not get beet crop in, do they recieve a preventive planting payment? Even if insurance pays for it, is part of the insurance premium subsidized by the Federal Gov’t?
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It still does not apply as sugar program. Sugar Program is only an end use, does not apply to any part of the plant until it is processed into sugar. It does not matter what crop is grown, it has been required to have crop insurance for a number of years if one even wants to get any government program which only pays on crops other than sugarbeets. Since the farmbill in works contains no direct payments, there is no longer an incentive to be forced to have insurance. So it comes to either make insurance affordable so all can have it or risk having it cost so much its unaffordable, risk wide spread disaster which could spell a total disaster to the nations food supply in near future as farmers quit due to lack of money. Crop Insurance is already the3rd or 4th highest flexible expense behind rent, fertilizer, most seed depending on coverage level. Keep in mind a farmer averages a claim once in 12 years, even at that rate, will not recover what he had paid in.
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This whole farming thing these days makes me sick. I can’t believe how much money is passed through, and with very little risk on the farmer. If it was risky anymore…you wouldn’t see farms over a couple thousand acres. The fraud, the hiding of grains to show low yield, multiple crops per field to claim on both,…oh and bad weather. Yeah I wish we could all be protected like that. It’s really hard to believe that crop insurance exists. Protection from bad weather AND commodity prices?? join the real world and give some young families a chance to get started farming…at under $1000/acre please (because no other farmers have gotten handouts like the current ones)
Hot debate. What do you think?
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What could happen, is that with land prices so high, is that corporations will only be able to purchase it.
North Dakota has the “anti-corporate” farmland ownership law, but if that were ever recinded or thrown out in court, corporations from out of state will be flocking in to purchase land.
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What people overlook, & have a hard time coming to grips with, is the fundamental change that has taken place in the structure of American farms. Single family farms are becoming less common. When Heidi talks about growing up country, does that still exist?
My aunts & uncles & cousins are farmers in NE. As people grow old & die their land isn’t passed down as often as absorbed into bigger & bigger operations. They are not agribusinesses per se, they are family rather than corporate owned, but they are too large to ever be considered the family farm
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For how many decades have farmers been buffered from the realities of running a business by government largesse? Problem is, FN is right. Many of us have an anachronistic mental image of “farmer.” For me it is my late uncle: old bib-overalls, a torn straw hat, rough hands, sun burned face, milking six cows, on top of an old John Deere pulling a manure spreader. Now a farmer is Jack Dalrymple…suit, tie, and millions in his pocket from subsidies.
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Crop insurance needs reform! Make the grower pony up his initial payment for the policy. Make them farm the land for 5 years before that piece is eigible for insurance. Revise the average yield formula and base it on what that actual piece of land produces as an average over the past 5 yearsthat it was planted in that crop. This would eliminate a lot of fraud and questionable practices.
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Some land was not meant to be farmed. The land type (alkali, etc.) and location (erodable, etc.)) meant it is more suitable for pasture, hayland, etc.
Farming it could result in a higher chance of crop failure. The good land should be farmed and the nonproductive should go back to other uses (pasture, etc.)
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True, there is land out there that should not be farmed due to poor land quality, should not be covered by insurance till 3rd crop year, But it is wrong to try and remove the federal government to turn it’s back on the federal crop insurance program. It is in place to ensure yearly sustainability, affordability of insurance, without it it would pass fertilizer to become the 2nd highest cost input in farming, would in effect be unaffordable to farmers to sustain having. Crop insurance even now is expensive, costs vary depending on coverage level, the higher the coverage the higher the premium the farmer pays, it goes up fast in cost to the farmer. Overall average, the farmer puts in more money than receives from crop insurance over 20 years, with the risks involved to the insurance companies, they will not be able to sustain the program without the federal government.
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Some of the farmers did it to themselves. They took advantage of the crop insurance.
Guess what, their farm has a high loss history and now the crop insurance premiums are higher.
If the losses would have been lower, then the premiums would have been lower.
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How about this? You get rid of school breakfast and lunch programs and actually make parents feed their kids? Not PC? Of course not. Why should parents be held responsible for their spawn? Too many other things to spend their money on.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Have to disagree with you 110% on this one Gene.
What are we trying to accomplish by sending little Johnny to school? We hope he 1. becomes socialized into being a good citizen (yes this is why there are free public schools in this country, just ask the guys who set the system up) 2. learns what is needed to get a job and become a productive member of society 3. learns to play well in the sandbox with others (closely related to # 1).
This will not happen if little Johnny is hungry. Breakfast is the cheapest intervention to improve learning in all of education. Cheap and effective. No modern math here.
Is it enabling loser parents? Probably. Do I care? Not really. I spend a huge part of my check in taxes. If I am going to pay for little Johnny to go to school I want my money’s worth. If $2 for breakfast helps little Johnny learn to read, and lays the building blocks needed for him to finish High School and maybe even go to the tech or college, then it is the best $2 a day we as a country can spend.
Remember: if little Johnny does not learn how to read, drops out of high school and becomes a delinquent incapable of caring for himself or his kids, we are going to pay much more. Prison is very expensive. On and off welfare your entire life is the same.
Cheaper to feed em. Forget politics. This is just simple self interest.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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So what you’re saying is that you have no problem in demanding responsibility from your kids, but don’t expect it from other parents? It’s pretty clear that as long as the government excuses lousy parenting, and actually rewards it, you’ll have what we do now: Coors instead of cornflakes. Bud instead of branflakes. Sorry. It’s not my job to pay for biological units to reproduce and support the results of their indiscriminant coupling.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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100% agree with this.
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Gene: that is a great sound bite, but what solution are you offering?
Exactly how do you make losers be non losers?
Do you give them three strikes then force sterilization?
Do you take the child away and put him/her in foster care? You already know the condition of the foster care system in this state, or the entire country for that matter?
A great sound bite with a kernel of truth but completely void of practicality.
I wish people would learn to take responsibility for themselves as well, but until Christ comes back and we have a perfect world, what do we do with the kids?
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You start by not allowing the government to enable poor parenting. You quit giving people cash and deliver goods instead, and I don’t mean six-packs. You don’t reward people by having more kids for a bigger check. You get rid of the boo-hoo poor people routine and reestablish what existed decades ago: public oppobrium for being on the dole. And yes, you take kids away and establish a foster care program with real oversight.
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Gene: we need a foster program for all these ridiculous oldies. Ever since they figured out the internet, they just don’t know when to quit. As far as this discussion goes-remember that some kids need help, maybe they need some meals paid for but they also need mentors in the community.
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Gene you still did not offer a solution. Public peer pressure is a sound bite, not a solution.
Where are you getting the $ for this foster care system? How do we curb the amount of kids who need it? Forced sterilization?
All of your solutions punish the kid for having loser parents. None of them punish the parent & encourage them to change behavior.
I am all for a very narrow & restricted list of what can be bought with food stamps & rent & child care vouchers instead of cash. I agree that is a common sense start
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It is the parents responsibility to see that their children have breakfast, not the government.
Should we buy the children their school clothes, too.
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Are you suggesting Robert there be a certain level of income necessary before your child is allowed in school? If you are hungry, or don’t have the best clothes, or have lice in your hair you are not allowed to attend?
1. Completely unbiblical. God did not say only take care of your family, He said the least of my brothers.
2. What you are suggesting was found unconstitutional. it was called separate but equal. There was also the issue of means testing, if you could not afford to pay for the books you could not go. Both were struck down.
K-12 is mandatory free. The question is do you want it to be effective or do you want to waste more money to prove your point?
I’m a nurse, my job does not let me judge why you are hungry or naked. I just see that you are and feed and clothe you.
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I do not like to see hungry children, but the parents have the responsibility to care for their children. That includes serving them breakfast, before they are off to school.
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What does Biblical have to do with it? God also told the Israelites to kill every man, woman and child of towns that would not surrender, and keep the teenage girls as sex toys. Thought you wanted a secular country.
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You are correct, Jesus did say that.. But he didn’t say the United States Government had to do it.. Charity begins at home.
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“God did not say only take care of your family, He said the least of my brothers.”
“God” didn’t say it, Jesus did. If you choose to believe the two are synonymous, fine. But don’t expect others to. Beyond that, if you are going to push this, you must push everything else he said…own only one coat, sell all you have and give to the poor, curse fig trees…
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True, The kids should eat breakfast before they even get on the bus or even get to school. They never had such a program when I was in school, even if they did, I would still have eaten at Home. The lunch program now is too scary to mention.
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Flyingnurse your positions are very inconsistent. As Gene points out, you impose “tough love” on your family even to the point that one of your sons was “booted out” of your house and slept at the local mission. Welfare reform worked under the Clinton administration (with a Republican Congress) because it incorporated requirements to return to work. Those requirements have now been largely stripped away by the Obama administration. As you have noted in numerous posts on this site, you can’t expect people to assume personal responsibility if you do not require them to assume personal responsibility; it works for your family and there is no reason to believe it won’t work for others. Many people have developed a sense of entitlement, hence the use of the word “entitlements”. People expect schools to not only educate, but feed their children, discipline their children and entertain their children. Many people now expect the government to provide their retirement through Social Security, provide their healthcare and provide for their long-term care through Medicaid. Each of those programs have noble goals and the government should give a hand-up to individuals who cannot provide for themselves. But these programs have led to a culture of dependency where there is an expectation that the government should ensure that no one experiences any hardship. For example, the long-term care benefit of Medicaid has, in a span of just three decades, gone from a small program intended to provide care for impoverished people without family support to a program that most middle class Americans now believe that they are entitled to free long-term care. As a result, families have abdicated their caretaker role to the government and abandoned even the thought of caring for their own family members. A second example is the topic of this article, crop insurance started out with noble intent but has morphed from a program intended to provide stability to a program that virtually insures profit. Your post troubles me because it suggests that you believe you are either smarter or more disciplined than other Americans; that for some reason you can impose “tough love” but nobody else could possibly do what you do. I disagree, I think that if people are given a chance they are remarkably resilient and self-reliant. Unfortunately an endless stream of welfare does not create wealth or prosperity.
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I agree with you on welfare requiring a work component. I have said repeatedly that giving something for nothing is counterproductive. If you get a check from the govt you should provide a service in return. Why should con crews be the only ones picking up trash? There are lots of elementary school kids who need help with reading & nursing home patients who need someone to talk to.
Where I disagree with Gene is holding the kid responsible for the actions of his/her parents. None of the interventions he has suggested do anything to protect the child while punishing or moving the parent in the right direction.
I mean really, do you think a loser cares what society thinks of them? They are losers. That is how they got there.
You are correct, I am hard with my kids. I demand a lot. We are talking food though. You don’t deprive a child of food & clothing to make a point about the parent.
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Let’s keep the talk on cutting crop insurance. We don’t need to protect millionaire farmers, but we do need to protect/feed kids whose parents may not be able to feed them. 10 meals a week at school…might be the only 10 they get.
REALLY. don’t talk about these ‘bad’ parents needing some support and the gov’t paying for anything. If you’re in ANY part of the farm business sector…it’s all gov’t money. Start volunteering to make change that you two know so much about.
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Whats going to be interesting, is seeing Heidi going to Washington and trying to get a Farm Bill for the farmers.
No money for it, unless we borrow and/or run the printing press (which causes inflation).
Those farmers that voted for Heidi, thinking she can get another Farm Bill Gravy Train, are going to be very dissapointed.
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Agreed
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We as a nation cannot be everything to everyone. We need to sit down & prioritize.
The nation needs defended. It does not need a perpetual funding machine for defense contractors & cities who do not want to lose the $ their bases provide.
Kids need schooling. Education is the only consistent way out of poverty. Not everyone can be a rock star or athlete. For the rest its school. If that means feed & clothe, so be it. Immunizations are much cheaper than treating the disease
We need roads, bridges, & infrastructure. That is the backbone of commerce. That is why Eisenhower built it.
Grandma should not be allowed to die in the street but SS is not and was never intended to be a retirement plan. It is the greatest generation who made it one. Let them pay for it.
Decide if healthcare is a right: pay for it. If it is a responsibility: let people die in the streets. It really is that simple.
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