U.S. Watchdog to Investigate Trump's Farm Bailout Program

[applegrove]

U.S. Watchdog to Investigate Trump’s Farm Bailout Program

The Government Accountability Office will review how the $28 billion farm bailout aimed at cushioning trade-related losses was spent.

By Alan Rappeport at the NY Times

Feb. 14, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/us/politics/trump-farm-bailout-investigation.html

"SNIP....

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Government Accountability Office is opening a review of President Trump’s $28 billion bailout for farmers harmed by his trade war amid allegations that the money was mismanaged and allocated unfairly.

The investigation came at the request of Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, who has been vocal in her concern that the aid program was biased, providing more funds to southern states that voted for Mr. Trump and favoring large and foreign agriculture companies over small farms.

.....

Democrats are not the only ones that have expressed concerns with the farm bailout program.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, joined with Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, in asking Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, to investigate JBS, a Brazilian-owned meat-processing that received $67 million in bailout funds. Lawmakers raised concerns about the payments given the company’s past legal problems: In 2017, two of JBS’s former top executives, brothers Wesley Batista and Joesley Batista, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in Brazil. The brothers remain majority shareholders with control over the company.



......SNIP"

[Wellstone ruled]

1. When a Sand and Gravel Company owner

gets mega millions as a result of owning Pilgrim Pride. Or how come the Red Army of China got a mega millions payment for their ownership of Smithfield Farms Chicken and Hog operations. Oh bTW,how about the Batiste Bros.who received tens of millions via the ownership of Swift/Western Beef/Ekridge the largest meat packer in the US as well as World Wide.

Let's not forget Grassley Farms,250k,not bad payday eh.

[Phoenix61]

2. I'm shocked, I tell you shocked.

You know it’s bad when Marco is whining about it.

[applegrove]

3. Like when the Chinese said of the subprime mortgage crisis and why they didn't "

do it themselves: "why would we take our smartest people, people who would otherwise have been engineers, and teach them finance so that they could develop tools to take money from regular people and give it to the rich????" (or something to that effect).

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Trump has the best sleaze money can buy