The conference report does not strengthen work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents and does not include any meaningful or even minor subsidy reforms, such as Senator Grassley's actively engaged amendment or the House-passed provision to repeal EPA's WOTUS rule.
Well designed work requirements for food stamp recipients are essential to reduce poverty, government dependence and to improve the labor force.
With regards to SNAP, Congress should require able-bodied food stamp recipients without dependents to take a job, prepare for work, perform community service, or at least search for employment in exchange for taxpayer-funded assistance.
Not exactly. States earn exemptions based on 15% of their caseload, but that doesn't mean they get used. States that are under waiver (not subject to time limits because of unemployment or other factors) don't get to use the exemptions, and states that can use them use far fewer than they are entitled to. This is not a real problem that needs fixing.
At the end of last year, 6 States and DC had a statewide waiver. 27 states had a partial waiver and over a 1000 counties were considered labor surplus areas. it appears the work requirements didn't pertain in some areas.
And despite 6 states having a statewide waiver, a full 19 states didn't hand out a single month of the 15% exemptions. Other states handed out a pittance. Indiana had 134K months available, and only handed out 16. Not 16K. 16.
I don't think so. First of all, let's keep in mind that you were originally talking about able-bodied adults without dependents. That's key. Cash assistance isn't even available to them, and already has its own work requirements, anyway. I don't know much about housing assistance. The idea that we should be putting any sort of restrictions on medical assistance is just morally repugnant.
Sorry, around these parts, I can no longer tell if someone simply accepts something as a given, or if they leave it off because they are moving the goalpost. This forum has made me quite the cynic.
I agree. They can pay me half the amount not to grow and save themselves a lot of money, maybe even give themselves a raise.
Should farmers be required to do all those things in exchange for their subsidies?
I think "set-aside" subsidies were done away with in the '96 farm bill. Today's farm subsidies are largely written to benefit crop insurance providers. Farmers crop insurance premiums are subsidized by taxpayers, to private insurance providers. If losses are big enough, the Risk Management Agency (RMA is the government portion of this public/private partnership) is there to "help" those private insurance providers.
That's how I understand it, too. And, sure, because of how it works, some people are eligible even if they don't grow the crops that are being subsidized, but this is a side effect, rather than the intent of the program.
You have to have "base acres", meaning a history of growing a specific crop, to be eligible for payments for that crop.
Yes.
"Key opportunities to reduce farm subsidies" When farm bankruptcies and suicides are increasing (some articles use the word soaring to describe the situation), you see that as a key opportunity to reduce the 20-22% of the farm bill that actually goes to farm programs?
You're correct on your assessment of the situation. The program payments to "not grow crops" was removed in the 95 farm bill. The commodity program that most grain farmers participate in each year has no acreage idling component to it. The program payments are based on the base history of a farm growing the crops (mainly corn, soybeans, and wheat in the Midwest) and then the annual payment eligibility is calculated on a county average yield and national average price for each commodity. Maybe simpler to say, a revenue calculation using the county average yield of each crop and national average price for each year is compared to the previous 5 year average. 2018 average county corn yield of 200 bushel per acre at a national average price of $3 is a $600 per acre revenue. That is compared to an Olympic average of the previous 5 year revenue calculations, and if it falls below 86% (farm bill statute) of the previous 5 year average, then payments are made to all farms in that county that have corn base acres, on 85% of their base history acres to be exact. The payments are dependent on county average yields each year and not based on each individual's yields on any given farm. This decoupling was done to make it simpler to administer (farmers don't have to supply their yield information to USDA each year), and the payments are then not subject to World Trade Organization rules and limitations. The decoupling of payments from what farmers are actually planting does result in some small farms that have base acre history in receiving payments when they left the farm idle or planted to hay/pasture, but apparently that option is being removed from the 2018 farm bill.
No way. Where'd that come from?Not Denald account -- even he would have thought this would have crossed the line:
What the actual feck!!
We have crossed the chasm -- where the real Donald Trump has passed the parody account.
And with those cashflow problems, 179 depreciation (while not paying off the corresponding assets/debt), rising interest rates are not going help. It could get ugly. Almost a perfect shitstorm.
