by John Stossel: By now you've probably heard that a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states: From 1999 through 2005, the USDA "paid $1.1 billion in farm payments in the names of 172,801 deceased individuals. ... 40% went to those who had been dead for three or more years, and 19% to those dead for seven or more years." One dead farmer got more than $400,000 during those years. And they say you can't take it with you. Defending the USDA, the GAO adds, "The complex nature of some farming operations -- such as entities embedded within other entities -- can make it difficult for USDA to avoid making payments to deceased individuals." Exactly. The agricultural section of the U.S. code is nearly 1,800 pages. There's an easy way to avoid such absurdities: Abolish all farm subsidies. Why are taxpayers forced to pay farmers $25 billion a year? . . . [Read More]Tags: farm subsidies, farming, government waste, John Stossel, pork-barrel spenders, Waste, Wasteful To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
0 comments:
Post a Comment