DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE SUBSIDIES

The Department of Agriculture has an estimated 2006 budget of around $96 billion. I wonder how much of this is in farm subsidies? See below.

I wonder how many of the farms which employ immigrants are actually being given subsidies with tax dollars?

I guess the argument is that our farms need cheap labor to survive. And U.S. tax dollars are needed to provide subsidies to these farmers to employ this cheap labor? Taking out the middleman leaves us with cheap labor needs our U.S. tax dollars? Something seems off here.

Here is one list that details the top recipients of farm subsidies over the past few years.

Here is another list by state.

Here are some additional links on subsidies: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Here is a quote that reflects the corruption of our, the U.S. voters' intent:

Once introduced, subsidies to maintain prices have proved extremely difficult to end. In France, farmers have vigorously protested decreases in subsidies that have made them the second largest food exporter after the United States. In 1996, the U.S. Congress, despite its long history of farm price supports, passed the Freedom to Farm Act, which eliminated agricultural subsidies in favor of fixed payments to farmers. [This was supposed to reduce subsidies, right?] The legislation failed to decrease payments to farmers, however, and by 2000 aid to farmers (including so-called emergency payments) had reached more than $22 billion, three times the 1996 level. [Thanks Congress!] A new federal farm bill in 2002 abandoned the 1996 goal of reducing farm payments, increasing base program expenditures by 80%. [Thanks Congress!] Agricultural subsidies in the United States, the European Community (now the European Union; EU),and Japan were issues of contentious debate in the Uruguay (1986–94) round of international trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and remain so in the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2005 the WTO issued rulings against U.S. cotton and EU sugar exports in which it said that subsidies distorted world trade.