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Agricultural subsidy

Will Lobby for Food

The farm bill is set to expire, which is bad news for anyone who eats.

Monica PottsJul 12, 2012
Flickr/cordery

Something happened today that, chances are, you know little about yet care about very deeply. It helps pay for the lovely farmers market you frequent every weekend. It’s behind all those corn-syrupy soft drinks you’ve been taught to avoid. It’s the reason you started hiking to that one artisanal shop for grass-fed beef after you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It helps feed America’s hungry, because it authorizes the federal food-stamp program, which feeds 46 million people. It’s the farm bill, usually the concern of only the corn, wheat, cotton, peanut, and soy-bean lobby, but it really should be called the food bill, and it has to be reauthorized every five years.

Why Conservatives Ought to Love the Postal Service.

Paul WaldmanJan 27, 2011

Bear with me here, this isn't really about Mitt Romney. But I was recently reading his book No Apology: The Case For American Greatness (summary: America is great), and at one point, while describing the virtues of the free market and the pathologies of government, Mitt says, "It has been my experience that almost always government is far less productive than enterprises in the private sector. That's why private companies build roads for government and make equipment for the military. It's also part of the reason why FedEx and UPS can make a profit shipping and delivering packages while the U.S.

The House and Food-Stamp Funding.

Monica PottsAug 09, 2010

Members of the House are traveling back to Washington today so that they can vote on the $26 billion aid bill to the states that the Senate passed last week. Annie Lowrey at the Washington Independent tells us, however, that some members, led by Rep. Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, are upset about the source of offset funding -- rolling back the food-stamp expansion called for in the stimulus bill.

As Lowrey notes, the problem is that pushing through a different bill from what the Senate has already passed would require the Senate to rush back from recess.