" The problem with the war on food stamps is that there’s one subsidy program in the farm bill that promotes greater dependency than food stamps and is growing just as fast: government-financed crop insurance. Yet conservatives say virtually nothing about this bailout of the rich and focus their ire on payments to the poor… America’s crop-insurance program is obscene. Farmers receive government subsidies averaging 70 percent of their premiums to purchase insurance that protects them against declining crop value. There’s no income limit for this subsidy: The vast majority of this taxpayer money goes to farmers who make in excess of $250,000 a year. The insurance policies are sold by private companies, and the government also pays those firms about 20 percent of the premium cost to cover their expenses. The companies get to keep the profits from the policies, so taxpayer money makes crop insurance a largely risk-free investment for insurance companies. Thus, the government uses taxpayer money to pay rich farmers to buy insurance from wealthy insurance companies, whom the government also pays to sell the policies to the farmers. Talk about a “free” market."
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:59:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015