The Farm Bill is a twice-a-decade huge-ass spending bill that covers anything and everything that has to do with agriculture: subsidies, trade, food safety, and nutrition.
Instead of passing smaller bills so people can read what’s in them, it’s a huge doorstop of a bill, where Congressmen get to put in little bits and pieces and goodies and kickbacks for their district and subsidies for huge multi-million-dollar dairy and corn operations.
The idea is that it’s supposed to help out struggling rural farmers, but it’s been bastardized into everything with “food” in the name being included, like “food stamps”, another formerly-temporary measure that now has set a historical record for number of people enrolled: 47.8 million, or 1 in 6 Americans.
After public outrage, food stamps were officially separated from the farm bill, cutting out the majority of the pages.
But here’s what’s left in…and what Congress wants to pass through without you knowing:
• $ 272,288 for President Jimmy Carter
• $ 82,874 for Secretary of Ag Tom Vilsack
• $9,000,000 for residents of Manhattan
• $ 947,075 for the Rockefeller family
• $ 995,805 for families of congressmen
That’s nearly $11.5 million alone for bullshit causes instead of struggling farmers.
Remember this when you think we should trust the government with money.
