Ok this is awesome. I’ve been slowly expanding my circle of libertarian blogs and I stumbled upon a lovely post at flying hedgehogs. Blogger Nikki (aka nikki—I don’t know why she has a distaste for the shift button on her keyboard; that’s a question for her, but I’m not going to judge) found a site that actually keeps track of farm subsidies. It’s like a holy grail for research!
For example, in my home county of Scott County, Iowa alone, 1,099 people received a total of $77,042,466 during the years of 1995-2003. That’s an average of $8,560,274 a year, $7,789.15 per person per year. And that’s just for corn! While the past two years were lower than the average (probably because, in part, my hometown is rapidly expanding, crowding out the farm land), it was increasing over those years: $4 million in 2002, $5.6 million in 2003.
The site lets you break down the numbers in all kinds of interesting ways but it all boils down to one central question: Where’s my cut?
2 comments:
How much corn did you not grow last year? How much did you contribute to your congresscritter? How many hours did you spent with his staff filling in the forms for not growing corn?
I'm willing to consult with you on this for 15% of the corn you don't grow.
i was blown away by the ridiculous amounts the i am contributing to my neighbors without my consent.
your analysis of the data is interesting. ohio farmers are receiving over $300 per ohio taxpayer, just totaling subsidies from the top ten crops. and that doesn't include administration costs and the cost of artificially high food prices.
p.s. my excuse for not using capshere. thanks for not judging. :)
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