Yasha Levine writes in The eXiled:
If tea party candidates were serious about stopping runaway spending and bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington, they would have to address one of the most egregious wastes of taxpayer dollars: federal farm subsidies. These handouts have become little more than taxpayer robbery, sending billions of dollars every year to wealthy “farmers,” even some who do not farm at all. It is not an opportunity the tea party is willing to take.
“Washington paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009, but to characterize the programs as either a ‘big government’ bailout or another form of welfare would be manifestly unfair—to bailouts and welfare,” says Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog that tracks federal farm subsidies. “After all, with bailouts taxpayers usually get their money back (often with interest), while welfare recipients are subjected to harsh means-testing, time-limited benefits, and a work requirement. …”
Not so with farm subsidies. Forget about helping struggling farmers—this taxpayer-funded gravy train is skewed primarily toward the rich, paying out billions to “McRanches” and to businesses like Fidelity National Financial, a Fortune 500 company, which got $6.5 million over four years to not farm its land.
If you think such blatant waste would galvanize the tea party, think again.
Truth is, the primary goal of tea party politicians is not to shrink the government, but to use it to transfer taxpayer wealth to rich Republicans. And there is no bigger welfare-for-the-rich program than federal farm subsidies, which have been paying out $20 billion a year to some of the richest—and predominantly Republican-affiliated—people in the country.
With so much money sloshing around, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that tea party politicians have gotten their share.
Take Rep. Michele Bachmann, the self-appointed leader of the tea party movement and recent founder of the Tea Party Caucus, whose stated mission is to promote “fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution and limited government” in the House of Representatives.
But, as I first reported on Truthdig in December 2009, Bachmann’s free-market beliefs do not seem to apply to her own pocketbook. According to federal records compiled by the Environmental Working Group, since 1995 the congresswoman profited from $251,973 in dairy and corn subsidies via a stake in her family’s farm. Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her piece of the business earned her a (federally subsidized) income of up to $50,000 in 2008, a nice addition to the $174,000 taxpayer-funded salary she gets as a House member.
Bachmann is not the only tea party subsidy queen. Many of the fresh-faced tea party candidates jockeying for a spot in Congress on a platform of “fiscal responsibility” and “small government” are quite content to allow themselves—and their constituents—to keep feeding at the “big government” trough. ...>more
