The scariest picture you'll ever see.

[AdminAssistant]

I know, Boozy, but we have to realize that people living off Social Security and pensions were counting on living on that for the rest of their days. If we go about slashing it, what are they supposed to do? Go back to work at 75 and 80? Social Security also covers those on disability. Are we going to start cutting their checks, too?

[HYHYBT]

So if they pass a budget that increased how much they get, how is that not giving themselves raises?

Who else logically *could* set Congress's pay? That a raise risks their reelection means it won't be abused much. And no, compared both to how much it costs to get and keep such an office, and to what most of them would be/were making before, their pay is hardly at absurd levels.

[TheRoo]

So if they pass a budget that increased how much they get, how is that not giving themselves raises?

Congress does indeed set their own pay, however due to the 27th amendment, no change in salary can take effect until a Congressional election shall have occurred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-...s_Constitution

[draco664]

Which is why we'll wait to say that until after we don't need money.

That's gonna be a bit late...

[Boozy]

I know, Boozy, but we have to realize that people living off Social Security and pensions were counting on living on that for the rest of their days. If we go about slashing it, what are they supposed to do? Go back to work at 75 and 80? Social Security also covers those on disability. Are we going to start cutting their checks, too?

No, most Social Security cost-saving measures involve cutting future benefits for those a long ways off from drawing them, or raising the age at which you can start drawing those benefits.

It doesn't do much in the short-term, though, which is why I used Medicare as the example in my post. There are cost-saving measures to be had now, if one is able to navigate the bureaucratic disaster that is that system.

[Bronzebow]

Funnily enough, I was just reading an article about recommendations to reduce the deficit.

I like the recommendations here (at least the ones I understand ). For one, the federal government should not be such a massive employee of so many people. It's simply a make-work scenario brought on over the past decade. Increasing the tax burden on the private sector in order to fuel jobs for the public sector is not a solution.

Heck, I was clapping halfway down the list for Discretionary Spending. Farm subsidies need to go, badly, so our agriculture sector can return to some semblance of balance, national health and normalcy. We have way too many Offices of This or Departments of That. Most should either be eliminated outright or merged to cut back costs. Sad to see NASA on the chopping block, but it's a private sector fight now.

The fallout from this should be...interesting. Doubt it'll go any farther than people screaming bloody murder.

[AdminAssistant]

Farm subsidies need to go, badly, so our agriculture sector can return to some semblance of balance, national health and normalcy.

I'm pretty sure everybody's tired of hearing my gripes about this attitude, so I'll just:

Sad to see NASA on the chopping block, but it's a private sector fight now.

This I agree with. Space exploration is important, no doubt, but there are so many other things to fix on this planet first. Let the billionaires make it their pet project.

Of course, there are those who would say the same thing about the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), which I vehemently support, because I've seen what happens when art is commercially driven (i.e., it sucks). The reason that Europe kicks our ass culturally is that they subsidize their artists, and we don't.

[Bronzebow]

I'm pretty sure everybody's tired of hearing my gripes about this attitude, so I'll just:

I don't think I've ever seen you discussing farming subsidies. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say, especially revolving around corn.

[AdminAssistant]

I don't think I've ever seen you discussing farming subsidies. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say, especially revolving around corn.

A lot of corn farmers (and other farmers who switched to corn) got really badly hurt in the ethanol bubble. Basically, a few years back, when ethanol was going to be the New Big Thing, a lot of farmers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars switching from cotton (or wheat or beans) to corn and got really screwed. Honestly, I don't know as much about corn; Dad farmed cotton and a little bit of beans.

There are things I have problems with. I don't agree with the Corn Lobby and their fierce protection of HFCS. I don't agree, at all, with the way we raise livestock, particularly cattle and chicken. In fact, I personally boycott one chicken company because of the shady way they do business.

I also don't agree with how ridiculously expensive farming has become. They've just released a new kind of cotton picker that creates instant compact "bales" of cotton (think hay bales), instead of requiring the farmer to dump into a module builder. The picker itself costs ~$500,000. The retrofitting that gins have to do in order to use the "bales" costs about that much (a cost that is passed on to all farmers, regardless of whether or not they use the new technology). Fertilizer, seed, pesticides, all very very expensive - that is, when they are allowed to actually use chemicals without the ecofreaks screaming at them, requiring new changes every other year. (Chemical companies actually love it, because that means that farmers constantly need new chemicals, and can't use those that the patent has expired on.)

There are things in farming that need to change. Corporate farming is the future, although it makes me sad to see that way of life disappear. Either way, subsidies help keep costs down. That makes food affordable, something that's generally a good thing, IMO. It also means that we're eating food grown in this country, where it can be carefully regulated (and should be better regulated, particularly with livestock).

I would be interested as to why you think that the removal of subsidies would allow the agriculture sector to "return to some semblance of balance, national health, and normalcy."

[Bronzebow]

I would be interested as to why you think that the removal of subsidies would allow the agriculture sector to "return to some semblance of balance, national health, and normalcy."

Because of the reasons you've listed above. We've sacrificed the health and nutritional value of a lot of our foods for the sake of growing food-like substances cheaper and faster. Corn especially is target to this, and soy is just a horrible situation.

I think we agree for the most part, but I disagree on a few points. For one thing, subsidies do not make food cheaper. Subsidies actually make food more expensive--you pay for food twice, on April 15'th and at the store. The $300 billion farm subsidy bill passed two years ago had this big fear mongering scare that we would all starve if we didn't get all of this money to small farmers! A few problems with that:

-Money does not go to small farmers. It goes to big, monolithic corporations. The small, family farmers so often brought up rarely see a dime, if ever. Plus, the average farmer makes over twice what the average American makes. The small, broke family farmer is a smoke screen, and even those farmers are by far more destroyed by the death tax than anything else.

-Despite the billions spent on subsidies, farming towns have shrunk. A government study showed that the more farm aid a small town got, the more likely it was to lose population because they hamper the competitiveness of small farms. Same deal we see with corn where large corporations were able to pass on the costs of their "meat" to taxes.

-Most crops receive zero subsidies. Apples, bananas, cantaloupes/melons, potatoes, broccoli, lemons, limes, cabbages, pineapples, carrots, grapes, lettuce, and numerous others. We're not in a crisis with any of these foods.

-Mantasamo. Enough said.

-Subsidies don't let market forces work. They can bring up prices for the crops they supposedly help, because farmers get paid whether or not anything is produced or not. The forces of supply and demand are thrown out of whack, and the signal from the market is artificially masked. Or, farmers will overproduce and over-inflate supply, which crashes prices down for lack of demand, once again masking the market signal necessary to balance production.

-Artifically lowered prices for food make people unaware of the actual cost of foods, while making them pay more through taxes and store prices combined. This is hampering, because people believe their food is cheaper, while in reality they receive an inferior product at much higher long term and short term cost.

-Even if they did work, trying to hold onto jobs that are not profitable is a long term hampering. The destruction of old, outdated jobs to make room for the new is what makes economies strong and competitive.

-Don't get me started on people buying farmland and picking up checks from Uncle Sam for producing exactly zero bushels.

-New Zealand. They cut out all farming subsidies, causing riots from farmers for months and people to think they would starve to death. Agriculture boomed, and now they are one of the most efficient producers in the world.

Those are my problems with overreaching subsidies. They do the exact opposite of what they claim to do. That is why cutting back these poorly planned subsidies would make food healthier, let farmers balance what they grow outside of these ridiculous artificial crop bubbles, and let food prices return back down to normal*.

* Ideally, if taxes were lowered as well to compensate. I'm not holding my breath.

[HYHYBT]

You threw in, several times, that food would also be healthier without subsidies. Do you have anything to support that side of your claim?

[Bronzebow]

You threw in, several times, that food would also be healthier without subsidies. Do you have anything to support that side of your claim?

Looking back, I think I was letting a different argument get in the way of actual subsidies as far as health goes, but the big example is corn.

Corn is subsidized to the point where it is cheaper to buy than it actually is to produce. As a result, we have substances like high fructose corn syrup in everything from bread to boxed meals to fruit juices and more. We feed corn to our feed animals, which is a deviation of their natural diet and causes health and meat quality issues. Corn in cows, for example, breeds a strain of e.coli that would otherwise not be an issue if they were to graze normally. We then eat this questionable meat. Corn and corn derivatives have been added or substituted in the vast quantity of food we see at supermarkets, and the nutritional and health qualities of many of these is still under question.

We see this with soy as well. Soy is so highly subsidized that food distributors are also trying to find various ways to add it to our diet. The results are questionable and unproven, and what was once touted as a healthy alternative is now eaten in vastly higher quantities in the States than our Chinese and Japanese brethren even recognize. The health repercussions are still up in the air (save for the cases of young boys growing breasts when drinking soy milk). We're simply rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

The basic concept, here, is that an overabundance of subsidies for a given crop causes people to want to (smartly, fiscally) use it. That means finding whatever way they can to use it and lowering their bottom line. The results aren't always sane, as we can see with these two. Some sources on this are books like Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and documentaries like Food, Inc.

edit: I no talk good with words

[HYHYBT]

Thanks! And sorry; I didn't mean that request to come out with the tone it did.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

An extreme debt problem requires extreme solutions. The ONLY way to get this thing under control will be to legislate some hurtful and damaging cuts and cost increases. It will make people upset, it may even cause riots, but it's either that or risk bankrupting America for good.

[Bronzebow]

No worries. I read it as curiosity, and I like it when people question something I say. Just makes us all better off.

Agreed, Crazed. Our only two solutions are to constantly raise taxes to counter our constantly rising spending, or start making cuts. I just wish someone was brave enough to tackle that second, "unpalatable" option.