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The untold story of how the administration tried to stand up to big agricultural companies on behalf of independent farmers, and lost.
It works like this: to do business nowadays, most chicken farmers need to contract with a processing company.
WINNING!!!
"Republicans, none more stringently than Grover Norquist, claim that higher taxes will hurt growth, and stymie the recovery. But there is little evidence to back that up. A recent study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found no correlation between lowering top tax rates and economic growthan ideological uppercut to Republicans who, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, cried foul and had it withdrawn. Many millionaires and billionaires, meanwhile, have reached the conclusion that in order to begin chipping away at the budget deficit, it is essential to raise the marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. Here we present five members of the 1 percent asking to pay more in taxes."
. . . . . . When you get to this sentence in the link, you can stop, for the rest is bullshit:
It works like this: to do business nowadays, most chicken farmers need to contract with a processing company.
There you have it. The notion that government should intervene if someone is unhappy.
There are always choices...for the farmers and the processors. If this farmer's processor is screwing him, he can: find another processor, become a better negotiator, file a lawsuit, diversify the operation, form a cooperative, alter his business plan and raise a different bird, find a niche market, start a new processing business, sell the farm and buy another, or a thousand other possibilities.
The point is, if the processor has broken a contract with the farmer, he has a remedy. If the processor is simply intolerable to work with, there are always choices. Life isn't always convenient. You shouldn't get to steal from me to make it so.
The change that finally upended this balance came in 1981. A group of Chicago School economists and lawyers working in the Reagan administration introduced a new interpretation of antitrust laws. Traditionally, the goal of antitrust legislation had been to promote competition by weighing various political, social, and economic factors. But under Reagan, the Department of Justice narrowed the scope of those laws to promote primarily consumer welfare, based on efficiency considerations. In other words, the point of antitrust law would no longer be to promote competition by maintaining open markets; it was, at least in theory, to increase our access to cheap goods. Though disguised as an arcane legal revision, this shift was radical. It ushered in a wave of mergers that, throughout the course of the following decades, would transform agriculture markets.
The next month, in June 2011, the House Appropriations Committee included a crucial rider in its funding bill. The rider was designed to strip the USDA of the funds it needed to finalize and implement the strongest of the proposed rules. Farmers and activists tried to fight the rider, which was backed by corporate livestock and poultry lobbies. Advocacy groups flew in farmers from around the country to meet with members of Congress, and 6,000 people called in to the White House to express their support. During a debate over the rider, Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the only representative to come out strongly in favor of the rules, slammed the House for standing with the few big meatpackers and against the many thousands and thousands of producers. Even the American Farm Bureau, a group that often champions policies favorable to agribusiness, wrote an open letter to Congress opposing the rider.
Administration officials who took part in the hearings say two factors thwarted their attempts to protect farmers from exploitation by processing companies. One was a deliberately obstructionist Republican-controlled House set on derailing countless reforms, not only in agriculture, and on protecting big industry from any tightening of regulation
When you get to this sentence in the link, you can stop, for the rest is bullshit:
It works like this: to do business nowadays, most chicken farmers need to contract with a processing company.
There you have it. The notion that government should intervene if someone is unhappy.
There are always choices...for the farmers and the processors. If this farmer's processor is screwing him, he can: find another processor, become a better negotiator, file a lawsuit, diversify the operation, form a cooperative, alter his business plan and raise a different bird, find a niche market, start a new processing business, sell the farm and buy another, or a thousand other possibilities.
The point is, if the processor has broken a contract with the farmer, he has a remedy. If the processor is simply intolerable to work with, there are always choices. Life isn't always convenient. You shouldn't get to steal from me to make it so.
Yes, of course you want everyone to stop reading...
The next month, in June 2011, the House Appropriations Committee included a crucial rider in its funding bill. The rider was designed to strip the USDA of the funds it needed to finalize and implement the strongest of the proposed rules. Farmers and activists tried to fight the rider, which was backed by corporate livestock and poultry lobbies. Advocacy groups flew in farmers from around the country to meet with members of Congress, and 6,000 people called in to the White House to express their support. During a debate over the rider, Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the only representative to come out strongly in favor of the rules, slammed the House for standing with the few big meatpackers and against the many thousands and thousands of producers. Even the American Farm Bureau, a group that often champions policies favorable to agribusiness, wrote an open letter to Congress opposing the rider.
Administration officials who took part in the hearings say two factors thwarted their attempts to protect farmers from exploitation by processing companies. One was a deliberately obstructionist Republican-controlled House set on derailing countless reforms, not only in agriculture, and on protecting big industry from any tightening of regulation
Bottom line, the GOP controlled house stands squarely behind the big companies that are screwing farmers and small business owners. The GOP illustrates once again that when they say they are out to protect the constitution, they really mean they want to protect large corporations and the wealthy. I expect that some of the large meat and poutry companies delivered some signigicant checks to House members for their votes. Speaker Boner handed them out, but not on the House floor. He had his hands slapped for doing that before. What a Crock!
