Issue Position: Government Subsidies

Issue Position

Taxpayers are looted every year so farmers (generally agribusiness) can sell their goods at less than the cost of the goods, to sell their goods in foreign markets again at below market value, to plant (or even get paid not to plant) crops at little to no risk, and sell their products in American markets at above market value (because competing foreign goods have protective tariffs attached), leading those same conscripted taxpayers to have to pay more for their groceries.

Government has a vested interest. Every year agribusiness give billions to politicians in bribes referred to as bribes (a.k.a., campaign contributions, board memberships, family member employment). Every year tariffs are placed upon foreign imports, including food.

With government essentially buying the crops, if the crop fails to meet the consistency specified by the government for that produce, the government orders it NOT to be sold on any market. Further raising the prices we pay at the market, and the complete "crop loss" is reimbursed by the taxpayers. Perfectly edible food that fails to meet a minimum size is ground back into the ground, or fruit that may have frozen in an early frost that now could not be sold whole, but could be sold to juicers, is ordered destroyed because some bureaucrat had planned (like any good socialist) for that particular farmer's crop to be sold as whole fruit. We cannot go against central planning. This happens every year.

Big business gets free advertising for their products abroad courtesy of the taxpayers, and gets to take risks with little to no penalties with your money. If they succeed in whatever subsidized endeavor they reap the rewards. If they lose their "investment" the taxpayer reimburses their losses. So there is huge incentive to take unwise risks and for fools to take risks (after all, it is not their money at risk). Perhaps the taxpayers are the fools. It is their money risked, and they get no payoff when risky investments succeed. They lose their money no matter who wins.

All domestic subsidies must stop. It is bad business to steal the taxpayer's money to hand over to individuals or businesses. It raises the costs to the consumer, many of whom are taxpayers, and therefore take a double hit on their labor. It promotes risky behavior by subsidized businesses, because the money these businesses risk is not theirs, so a bad investment results in no net penalty, while a investment that is successful usually reaps larger returns to match the risk. Yet the real provider of the money, the taxpayer, sees no return for their fleecing, and they see all the cost.

Businesses fail all the time. When the reasons for the failure is government regulations, this is tragic. Frequently failing businesses get loans made to them by the government. Why does the private banks not loan these businesses money? Because they consider these failing businesses as bad risks. The government comes in and covers the bad loan with taxpayer money. As a end result, government will often end up owning businesses. Passenger railroads were taken over by the government. Amtrak is enormously subsidized by the taxpayer. And the airline industry is falling into the same rut. Government regulation stifles competition, heck government even chases away airline customers on flights of less than two hours! Government runs in with "loans" to bail out the industry, and owns a little more of each airline company every year. The end result will be the airline industry will be government controlled soon.

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