SO THIS IS HOW DEMOCRATS REFORM SPECIAL INTERESTS?

In 1933 during President Roosevelt's first term the depression was ravaging the farmers of America, so in the name of "The New Deal" Roosevelt and the Democrat controlled Congress passed the "Agricultural Adjustment Act". This bill created a large bureaucracy that hands over into today's government. In the Roosevelt years it was called "Agricultural Adjustment Administration."

Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many New Dealers were highly sympathetic to the marginal farmers who lived on the land in severe poverty, especially in the South. Major programs addressed to their needs included the Resettlement Administration (RA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, NYA, Forest Service and CCC, including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation, and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests.

The AAA was the first program on such a scale on behalf of the troubled agricultural economy, and it established an important and long-lasting federal role in the planning on the entire agricultural sector of the economy.The problem was that the program dictated that excess production of milk above government established maximums had to be dumped, and hogs bred in excess of government maximums were slaughtered. We still have millions of pounds of rancid butter stashed in cave in the Mountain states that were shipped there to artificially control prices!

In 1936, the Supreme Court declared the AAA to be unconstitutional, stating that "a statutory plan to regulate and control agricultural production, [is] a matter beyond the powers delegated to the federal government..." The AAA was replaced by a similar program that did win Court approval. Federal regulation of agricultural production has been modified many times since then, but together with large subsidies it is still in effect in 2007.

In 1996 the Freedom To Farm Act was passed by Congress to get farmers off the dole they had become accustomed to under the FDR "New Deal" programs.The intent was for the subsidies to cease in 7years.

Subsidies for "farmers" are based upon historical land use. If it was planted with corn last year, but now lies uncultivated it still qualifies for a subsidy! What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.

Perfect examples of the Federal bureaucracy run amok is the following report in the Washington Post.Donald Matthews lives in El Campo, Texas on his sprawling 18 acre home site. Built in was once a part of a large rice field he receives direct federal payment from the Agriculture bureaucrats $1300 each year, because the land was once a rice field.
If this isn't bad enough how about the Surgeon in Huston, Dr. Jimmy F. Howell who received $490,709 over the last ten years in subsidies. 1.3 billion dollars have been paid since 2000 to people who do NO FARMING.

The Democrats took control of Congress in the last election by promising they would stop the "corruption" of the Republican Congress and stop payments to special interests.

Well there are lies, liars, and equivocators who get elected to Congress as Democrats. Case in point: the 2006 Farm subsidies that Congress approved were reported by the Washington Post as "having over 15 billion dollars in wasteful,unnecessary redundant spending." Over 95 billion dollars of taxpayers hard earned dollars have gone to subsidising "farmers".

I put farmers in quotes because not only the 707,576 farmers received subsidies but Fortune 500 companies like the John Hancock Life Insurance Company got 2.8 million dollars, David Rockefeller received $553,000,Ted Turner $206,000, Senator Charles Grasley of Iowa $225,000 and Representative John Salazar of Colorado got $161,000 in farm subsidies!

In 2006 President Bush asked Congress to limit taxpayer financed agriculture subsidies to farmers whose annual adjusted income is less than 200 thousand, but "Queen" Pelosi and her Democrat minions re-authorized subsidies for the next five years to farmers with income as high as one million dollars.

Ten percent of the 767,596 farmers who received farm subsidies got 60% of the total dollars distributed in 2006.

Some Chicago "Miracle Mile Farmers" in the Chicago zip code 60611 that includes downtown Michigan Avenue were well funded by Senators Durbin and Obama and their Congressional representatives.
Three billion dollars was sent to addresses on the "Miracle Mile"from 2003 to 2005 as farm subsidies!

Even former Bulls basketball star, Scottie Pippen got $75,000!

The average farmer makes $81,400 dollars per the 2002 US census figures, and has a net worth of over 835,000. farming is better than ever before, and there are very few farmers who go broke as did farmers in the 1930's. Many farmers sell their land to developers for the ever increasing spread of country living by former city residents.

What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare!

And The Spending and LIES continue!