[talaniman]

Who else can stem the behavior of the broken capitalist model of steal all the money and leave no crumbs, but government?

[paraclete]

and your 17th century Mercantilism theories have been discredited for more than a century. Tariffs and protectionism is warfare by another name. Doesn't surprise me however that a Keynesian would cling to mercantilism ,since they love government intervention in the economy and statism generally .

You accuse me of seventeenth century thinking while you cling to your outdated constitution like an upturned lifeboat. Adam Smith is dead and so is his model

[tomder55]

Yeah the trillion dollar farm bill is the worst corporate welfare scam ever.

You will be happy to hear that the farm bill (or as you correctly called it , the bloated welfare bill) was defeated in the House of Reps yesterday .
That's the good news... the bad news is that it will go back to the drawing board,a few provisions will be shuffled ,a few will have slightly reduced funding . Then the bill will be back on the floor for consideration . I can guarantee version B or C of this garbage bill will be passed and signed.
Maybe I'm wrong ;maybe this is a harbinger of things to come. But it won't happen if folks like the Tea Party get purged from the political process.

[talaniman]

Conservative House repubs voted NO, because the cuts to SNAP weren't deep enough. And Senate repubs want 30 billion more for border security up from 18 billion. Yeah we need more of those types, all right.

[tomder55]

I thought you objected to the farm bill being just another welfare bill . SNAP certainly qualifies as a welfare benefit.. I say bravo to the bipartisan vote against farm subsidies .

[talaniman]

Rich guys don't need subsidies, poor people need food stamps.

[tomder55]

Food stamps has expanded beyond all reason and logic . It has doubled since the emperor took office. It has expanded beyond a 'safety net ' program.
Monsanto and ADM are upset . They can't dump their excess crops and processed food on the government to distribute.

You want a food stamp bill ? Then introduce food stamp legislation . You want a bill about farm price supports ? Then introduced one that is separate from a food stamp bill.
It's the same bs we always have to deal with ,a thousand plus pages of comprehensive legislation designed to trap legislators into voting for something they oppose ,or give them cover by including something they support.

[talaniman]

Don't blame expansion of food stamps on the poor without acknowledging the recession that took all the money out of the economy before Obama came to office and the tight job market and economic disruptions that have plagued us for the last 5 years.

You may be right though, that it may be time to decouple the safety net from the over all farm bill and deal with them as separate issues.

The original thinking was that poor people would not be forgotten or ignored so tying it to a bigger bill essential to agriculture business made sense. But I see making SNAP a stand alone bill would also make it a target for conservative disdain who have exactly your attitude toward the most vulnerable people in society and ignore them.

That's what made this a terrible bill, that cutting poor assistance AND increasing subsidies for rich farmers (in congress) was not a good idea.