Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Arkansas Politics Farmer Blanche
Posted by Max Brantley on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:25 AM
Sen. Blanche Lincoln's efforts to increase farm subsidies for "wealthy farmers in Arkansas" gets ripped in a Washington Post blog posting today.
I'm guessing Republican opponent John Boozman has no problems for preferences for the already wealthy, however. Writes the Post:
It's true that unusually heavy rains at harvest time swamped many cotton and other farms in the Deep South last year. In Arkansas, row-crop operations earned $3 billion, 12 percent less than pre-harvest forecasts and less than they made in 2008, a bumper year — but a slight improvement over 2007. In short, a difficult but hardly biblical situation. And compared with other claimants on federal money and compassion — black farmers still seeking $1.2 billion for past government discrimination, say, or victims of Haiti's earthquake — the plight of Arkansas agriculture seems secondary indeed.
It gets worse.
Speaking of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, farm Subsidies
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Dems say Crawford budget vote would slash farm subsidies
April 19, 2012Again, feel free to consider the source, as I asked the other day when a Democratic campaigner noted that U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, an outspoken opponent of earmarks, nonetheless voted against the repeal of existing earmarks that benefit Republican congressmen's interests. /more/
- More »
Comments (7)
Showing 1-7 of 7
From the article....
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Even more dubious is the funding source Ms. Lincoln wants the White House to raid: Section 32, an obscure permanent appropriation within the Agriculture Department. The USDA normally must spend it on food for needy children,
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At a time when child poverty is very high and skyrocketing. At a time when 42 million Americans are on food stamps. At a time when Plantation Blanche is trying to pretend she won't screw the Social Security pooch assuring millions die eating cat food, if they are lucky.
This is not a nice person... this is Boozman in a dress with pearls!
John Gray should be your only choice.
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"And since when do George W. Bush's practices constitute precedent for Democrats?" -- Washington Post blog link, on Lincoln's citing a precedent for raiding Section 32 funds to double Big Agriculture subsidies.
Several days ago the AT blog had a lengthy thread about the Chamber of Commerce getting a taxpayer-funded donation from the City of Little Rock while lobbying for Republican and other rightist positions on public issues. Just a couple of days ago I posted something about an AP story noting that the national Chamber had donated $300,000 to Blanche Lincoln's primary campaign against Bill Halter, but had not decided whether to back her again in the race against Boozman or not. In between we received an arm-twisting about the importance of voting for Blanche to avoid getting Boozman as senator. If the Chamber of Commerce can't decide which of the two better backs their interests, how can we?
http://www.salon.com/wires/politics/08/21/…
It's very very good to be a farmer in a largely forgotten corner of our state.
Total USDA Subsidies
1995-2009
1 Ratio Farms Helena, AR 72342 $874,070
2 Catron Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $453,948
3 Pc433 Farm ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $444,284
4 Long Lake Plantation ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $416,286
5 Modoc Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $345,108
6 Rohrscheib Family Farms ∗ Lexa, AR 72355 $313,288
7 Wabash Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $308,584
8 Young & Co ∗ Poplar Grove, AR 72374 $306,515
9 Malibu Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $293,828
10 King Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $281,221
11 Etc Farms ∗ Wabash, AR 72389 $275,890
12 Polk Farms ∗ Marvell, AR 72366 $261,586
13 W E Jackson Farms ∗ Marvell, AR 72366 $259,021
14 Kdl Farms ∗ Elaine, AR 72333 $256,545
15 Btc Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $253,625
16 Hwy 44 Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $251,619
17 Nickey Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $241,206
18 Cane Ridge Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $232,908
19 Cypert Farms ∗ Marvell, AR 72366 $227,829
20 Storey Farming ∗ Marvell, AR 72366
Recipients of Commodity Subsidies from farms in Phillips County, Arkansas totaled $17,023,000 in in 2009.
Commodity subsidies in Phillips County, Arkansas totaled $301 million from 1995-2009.
And these figures don't tell the whole story. Here is the recent history of payments to Pc433 Farm:
Disaster Subsidies Commodity Subsidies Total USDA Subsidies
1995-2009
2002 $0 $0 $415,785 $415,785
2003 $0 $121,380 $1,180,935 $1,302,315
2004 $0 $0 $698,522 $698,522
2005 $0 $66,516 $1,044,922 $1,111,438
2006 $0 $0 $969,556 $969,556
2007 $0 $0 $462,202 $462,202
2008 $0 $119,956 $486,224 $606,180
2009 $0 $0 $444,284 $444,284
Total $0 $307,852 $5,702,431 $6,010,283
By god, no wonder Plantation Blanche wants to kill unions to save money to give to her farmer friends! And look at our House member and who brought home the most pork for their farmer buddies......oh how they're going to miss Marion Berry!
Rank District Commodity Subsidies
1995-2009 Pct of
Total Running
Percentage
1 1st district of Arkansas (Rep. Marion Berry) $5,707,878,179 69.3% 69.3%
2 4th district of Arkansas (Rep. Mike Ross) $1,492,823,558 18.1% 87.4%
3 2nd district of Arkansas (Rep. Vic Snyder) $226,822,975 2.8% 90.2%
4 3rd district of Arkansas (Rep. John Boozman) $25,252,089 0.3% 90.5%
NOozman ain't even trying! Here's the very long link to all this yummy info, don't forget to click the individual links if you want a real good mind blowing:
http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=05…
PS this isn't for all of Arkansas, just one county!
Kinda like John McCain. Has been on the government teat since the day he was born (except, of course, his terrible days as a POW). Attacks the government but takes those monthly checks/benefit from his enemy.
May I be rude enough to point out that when McCain was a POW he was on the tit of the North Vietnamese government.....so he has a 100% record of being on the tit or teat if you please.
I'm so sorry the wingnut didn't beat old man McCain last night. So so so so sick of him. Please Jesus....take him home!
I was living in AZ when Hayworth was a congressperson. He is a bomb thrower of the worst type. On a good day, he would be another "Joe Wilson"-and he had very few "good" days. Interesting, the McCain campaign bought commercial air time on Hayworths's very right-wing talk show after he had said he was going to run but hadn't left the station and "officially" declared. Of course, he also spent $20 million of his money (actually probably Cindy's money) on the campaign so he actually bought the seat just like other millionaires.
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