Reply to Harris interview with MSNBC Sept 25

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Harris August strategy was to take over for Biden, win Democrat support, build enthusiasm, and raise a ton of money and volunteers. Fine.

Now it's late September. She needs to spend that money and volunteers convincing moderates that she has something to offer.[/quote]

If by this point you still think Trump has anything to offer and would even consider voting for that incoherent, criminal, lying POS, you do not qualify as a moderate.  Nope...no buts...nope.  You don't.[/quote]

Okay, here you go. AS you read these through, keep in mind that in almost evey case, only the richest and most well-off benefit from these subsidies, and there is no trickle down

[b]Corporate Welfare[/b]
Market Access Program. This program hands out about $200 million annually to help pay for the marketing costs of certain farm products. Some of the recipients include the Brewers Association, the Pet Food Institute, Sunkist Growers, Welch's Food, and the Wine Institute.

Advanced Technology Program. This program, which costs more than $100 million annually, gives grants to companies for technology research.

Foreign Military Financing. U.S. taxpayers fund the purchases of weapons by foreign governments through this program, which costs more than $4 billion annually.

Amtrak. The passenger rail agency receives more than $1 billion annually in subsidies. Amtrak should be privatized so that it can drop unprofitable routes and make users bear the full costs of the service.

Export-Import Bank. This agency helps finance the foreign purchase of U.S. goods, and it has been involved in numerous scandals. For example, it backed the risky overseas ventures of Enron Corporation and it providing $243 million in loans to bogus Mexican companies, including drug cartels.9

Maritime Administration. This $500 million agency provides subsidies to the commercial shipping and shipbuilding industries. The irony is that burdensome tax and regulatory policies helped push shipping-related industries offshore in the first place.

Energy Research. The Department of Energy spends about $9 billion annually on civilian energy research and subsidies. Federal energy research has a poor track record, and there is no reason why the energy industry shouldn't fund its own research, as other industries do.

Small Business Administration. This $500 million agency provides subsidized loans and loan guarantees to small businesses. It has a poor record of selecting businesses to support, and its loans have high rates of delinquency.

[b]Agriculture[/b]
Large-scale federal support for agriculture began in the 1930s when Congress enacted commodity price supports, supply regulations, import barriers, and crop insurance. Over the decades, these programs have been modified and new programs added, but the misguided urge to coddle farm businesses remains the same.

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) runs more than 150 programs that provide direct subsidies and indirect support to farm businesses.2 Most direct subsidies are for large producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice—not for livestock producers or fruit and vegetable growers. About one-third of the nation’s two million farms receive regular subsidies, although that ratio is higher for larger farms.3

Insurance. Crop insurance is the largest farm subsidy program, costing about $10 billion a year.4 The program displaces private methods of managing risk and gives large subsidies to high-income households. Federal crop insurance for revenue and yield shortfalls is available for about 130 crops, but corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton are the main ones.

The USDA subsidizes the insurance premiums of farmers, costing taxpayers about $8 billion a year. The subsidies cover an average of 62 percent of the premiums, which results in most farmers making money on this so-called insurance.5 The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that farmers received $65 billion more in claims than they paid in premiums between 2000 and 2016.6

The USDA pays about $2 billion a year to 14 crop insurance companies to cover their administrative costs, and the companies also receive underwriting gains. With this aid and the inflated demand for policies, the companies appear to make above-normal profits.7

There are no income limits for the crop insurance program, and the subsidies are tilted to the largest farms. One study found that “farms in the top 10 percent of the crop sales distribution received approximately 68 percent of all crop insurance premium subsidies.”8 The Government Accountability Office reported that even billionaires receive crop insurance subsidies, but we do not know their identities because particular recipients of these subsidies are a government secret.9

Agriculture risk coverage (ARC). This program pays subsidies to farmers if their revenues, or alternately their county’s revenues, fall below a benchmark or guaranteed level. The lower the revenues, the larger the subsidies. The program covers more than 20 crops, and annual payments fluctuate between about zero and $6 billion.10 The largest payments go to farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Price loss coverage (PLC). This program pays subsidies to farmers based on the national average market price of a crop compared to the crop’s reference price set by Congress. The larger the fall in a crop’s national price below its reference price, the larger the payout to farmers. The program covers more than 20 crops, and annual payments fluctuate between about zero and $5 billion.11 The largest payments go to farmers of corn, wheat, cotton, rice, soybeans, and peanuts.

Farmers can choose to participate in either ARC or PLC. At the same time, they can enroll in crop insurance, which has the same general purpose of ensuring high farm incomes. Thus, farmers can double-dip from at least two subsidy programs if their farming income falls short.

Conservation programs. The USDA spends more than $5 billion a year to improve the lands held by farmers. The Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program are working-lands programs that pay farmers to improve their farming and environmental practices on lands in production. Payments from these two programs are tilted upward—in 2015, half went to farm households with annual incomes of more than $157,000.12 By contrast, the Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to take marginal lands out of production, and these payments are tilted toward smaller farms.

Ad hoc and disaster aid. In addition to ongoing aid to boost farm incomes, the government provides ad hoc and disaster aid. Since 2018, Congress has provided farmers an extra $23 billion for losses related to trade disputes, $31 billion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, $17 billion in extra conservation aid from the Inflation Reduction Act, and $15 billion in various disaster bills.13

Marketing and export aid. The Agricultural Marketing Service spends more than $2 billion a year on farm and food promotion activities. The Foreign Agricultural Service operates 100 foreign offices and spends more than $2 billion a year on marketing activities for U.S. farm and food products.

Other support. The USDA employs thousands of scientists and other experts to aid the agriculture industry. The department spends more than $4 billion a year on agriculture and food research at more than 90 USDA locations and at colleges across the nation, and it provides farmers an array of other services, such as statistical and economic analyses

[b]Oil and Gas[/b]

Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. [/quote]

That's a list of complaints[/quote]

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