Provision Requiring WELFARE QUEEN Lawmakers To Disclose Subsidies REMOVED From Final Farm Bill

[Segami]

"..The welfare queens in our Congress don't want Americans knowing how much they are receiving in farm subsidies..."

I guess this shouldn't surprise anyone. It looks like members of Congress are tired of allowing the rest of us to know just how much they receive in farm subsidies. The Environmental Working Group reported that "15 members of Congress or their spouses benefitted from a total of $237,921 in taxpayer-funded farm subsidy payments last year." Thanks to a provision slipped quietly into the new farm bill, we won't have access to that information. Heaven forbid someone might use the information to criticize them for taking their corporate welfare while at the same time being more than willing to cut food stamps for those living in poverty.



Lawmakers won’t have to disclose the farm subsidies they receive:

A provision requiring members of Congress and the administration to disclose what crop insurance subsidies they receive was quietly dropped from the farm bill that the House passed on Wednesday.

Section 11001 of the House-passed farm bill had a provision that “requires disclosure (by name) of the amount of crop insurance assistance received by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and members of their immediate families.”

That provision was taken out in closed-door conference negotiations before the bill was released on Monday. The bill cleared the House in less than 72 hours, before many lawmakers had a chance to review it, and now heads to the Senate.

https://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/agriculture/196856-lawmakers-wont-have-to-disclose-crop-insurance-subsidies-under

Taxpayers for Common Sense who spotted the change has more analysis of the bill here: TCS Analysis of the Farm Bill Conference Report. And they released this statement: TCS Statement on House Passage of the 2014 Farm Bill Conference Report:

“Today, the House of Representatives passed a trillion dollar farm bill 251 - 166 that thumbs its nose at our $17 trillion national debt and spends 50 percent more than the last farm bill. It not only fails to make long overdue reforms to outdated costly farm subsidy programs, but also increases spending on handouts for profitable agribusinesses during a time when the agriculture sector is experiencing record profits. In fact, the retrograde farm bill is so wasteful that “reform” was stripped from the title of the bill. Worse yet, it fails to rein in unlimited crop insurance spending or make even minimal reforms to farm subsidy payment limits that were already agreed to last year in both the House and Senate.”


cont'

http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/tcs-statement-on-house-passage-of-2014-farm-bill-conference-report

cont'

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/provision-requiring-lawmakers-disclose

[Segami]

1. "...Section 11001 of the House-passed farm bill had a provision that...

...“requires disclosure (by name) of the amount of crop insurance assistance received by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and members of their immediate families.”

That provision was taken out in closed-door conference negotiations before the bill was released on Monday. The bill cleared the House in less than 72 hours, before many lawmakers had a chance to review it, and now heads to the Senate.

Taxpayers for Common Sense spotted the change in the bill.

“Considering a bunch of lawmakers receive those subsidies (including those on the Conference Committee) it’s a wonder how it got in there in the first place,” said Taxpayers for Common Sense staffer Steve Ellis.

https://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/agriculture/196856-lawmakers-wont-have-to-disclose-crop-insurance-subsidies-under

[PADemD]

2. Will they not be listed in this database?

http://farm.ewg.org/

[Segami]

4. My reading is they will NOT be listed.

Crop Insurance Title

Section 11001(b) is deleted. Even though the House bill agreed that crop insurance subsidies received by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and members of their immediate families should be publicly disclosed, the final bill removes this provision meaning taxpayers won't know how many federal subsidies their lawmakers are receiving.

http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/tcs-analysis-of-the-farm-bill-conference-report

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Government done in secret isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. n/t

[woo me with science]

5. K&R