this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
63 points (97.0% liked)
United States | News & Politics
3450 readers
499 users here now
Welcome to !usa@midwest.social, where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.
If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.
Rules
Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.
No memes/pics of text
Post news related to the United States.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
some years are better than others. on the good years, you can afford to buy things. when a few bad years hit, you can make nothing and end up paying what the average person makes in a year just to keep the farm running. could you afford to pay your job $50k a year just in the hope that next year it pays you something? could you do that for a couple years straight?
growing food is not very profitable, which is why subsidies exist in the first place. and since you depend on farmers to keep growing food instead of doing what's in their own self interest and growing cash crops, just so you don't starve to death , you better hope the government keeps farmers in business.
Farming is subsidized because of pork-barrel politics. They’re paid to grow corn that’s mostly thrown away. Sometimes they’re paid to not grow food.
And much of it is exported. How does feeding China help me? Why should “successful” businessmen get my tax dollars?
They aren’t your tax dollars, they’re our tax dollars. And seeing as those Chinese people you don’t like feeding are making everything else you consume, that’s how it fucking helps you.
Given that I'm in a maker state (not a taker state) and I don't get any tax credits (not married, no kids, not deducting mortgage interest, etc.) — I mean, it is my money. And great, we exported all our union manufacturing jobs to an authoritarian sweat shop.
Well, stop doing me favors. I don't want to subsidize soybeans for export to other countries to prop up authoritarian regimes.
Ok but taking China out of the equation here, I think their point is that it's part of the international trade system, which does benefit you. The US can't make everything, so being able to trade with other countries is a good thing. The tariffs putting a squeeze on that is an example of how interconnected and dependant we are on it.
I’m generally against nationalization. Farming should 100% be nationalized.