Not From the Onion

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/not-from-the-onion-2.html

by Alex Tabarrok on June 17, 2011 at 10:15 am

The headline says it all:

House keeps farm subsidies, cuts food aid

Here are some of the other provisions which seem designed just to be ridiculed by Jon Stewart:

Directs the Agriculture Department to rewrite rules it issued in January meant to make school meals healthier. Republicans say the new rules, the first major overhaul of school lunches in 15 years, are too costly.

Forces USDA to report to Congress every time officials travel to promote the department’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program, which supports locally grown food, and discourages the department from giving research grants to support local food systems. Large agribusiness has been critical of the department’s focus on these smaller food producers.

Prevents USDA from moving forward with new rules that would make it easier for smaller farmers and ranchers to sue large livestock companies on antitrust grounds. The proposed rules are meant to address the growing concentration of corporate power in agriculture.

Delays for more than a year new rules for reporting trades in derivatives, the complex financial instruments blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 financial crisis. A Republican amendment adopted Thursday would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which funded in the bill, to first have other rules in place to facilitate its collection of derivatives market data.

[.....]

Perhaps the most outrageous provision was one the good guys won:

Critics of farm subsidies did score one victory: The House voted to block a $147 million annual payment to Brazil’s cotton industry. The United States agreed to make that payment last year after Brazil’s industry complained to the World Trade Organization that Washington unfairly was subsidizing U.S. cotton farmers. The United States lost the WTO case and agreed to make the payments to Brazil as a settlement.

So not only have we been subsidizing cotton farmers but we have been paying Brazil to allow us to keep subsidizing cotton farmers. Incredible. I wonder whether this provision will make it into the final bill.

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Here is a comment about this from the following blog:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/06/house-keeps-farm-subsidies-cuts-food-aid.html#comment-6a00d83451b33869e2014e8935e766970d

JeffF said...
A frustration I have on the reporting of bill passages is that they so rarely contain information on how the two parties voted.

In this case, after five minutes of searching, I found that all democrats and a dozen or so republicans voted no. The rest of the republicans voted yes. Most news reports only reference the vote totals.

The worst is when a few percent of one or both parties switch and it is reported as a "bipartisan vote". Really when say 95% of republicans plus 5% of democrats (who get massive campaign support from whatever industry is being favored) vote yes and 95% of democrats plus 5% of republicans vote no saying the bill passed in a bipartisan vote is not an accurate summary.

Friday, June 17, 2011 at 10:41 AM

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