Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
Paying Taxes Like a General, or, Better Yet, Amazon
Posted on May 30, 2019
Decades ago, when discussing the complexity of U.S. tax code, an ag lobbyist friend noted that all he wanted in any tax reform “was to pay the same taxes the generals paid: General Mills, General Motors, General Dynamics…”
He’d still take that deal. In 2018, General Dynamics had an effective tax rate of 17.8 […]
Ethanol’s Tightening Tough Spot
Posted on May 8, 2019
If you want to anger almost any American farmer, write something less than flattering about the declining use of biofuels—especially ethanol—in the U.S. today.
If you want to really anger almost any American farmer, write something unflattering about biofuels—especially ethanol—that includes the sentence, “U.S. farmers, particularly cornbelt farmers, have gotten a really bad deal from the […]
“No problem, I’ll just stop eating pork.”
Posted on April 24, 2019
One tried-and-true tool politicians use to deflect public criticism is as old as politics itself: beat up the press.
Someone in Secretary Sonny Perdue’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) thought it was time to do just that April 8 as the “FSIS Office of Congressional and Public Affairs”—USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service—issued a blistering […]
Unlocking the Rural Economy Requires Different Keys
Posted on April 10, 2019
Of all the places you’d expect to see a fight between the cold, hard face of ag economics and the warm, tender heart of rural America, that place would not be the corner of West 41st St. and Eighth Avenue in New York City, the home of the New York Times.
And yet there it was in […]
Corporations Have Rights; Why Not a Lake?
Posted on April 10, 2019
If the ballot box is the ultimate source of power in the United States, then voters in Toledo, Ohio, used that power Feb. 26 to create what’s now being called a “Bill of Rights” for their wide, blue neighbor, Lake Erie.
That vote, if it withstands court challenges (one was filed immediately after the referendum […]
In the Long Run It’s, Well, a Long Run
Posted on March 14, 2019
One of the oldest theoretical constructions in economics declares that in a perfect market, short term profits and losses eventually even out so that, in the long term, all profits are zero.
Famed 20th century English economist John Maynard Keynes gets credit for restating this jargon-rich theory into clear, concise language when, in 1923, he wrote, […]
Knives, Forks, and Farmers Favor Immigration Reform
Posted on February 21, 2019
When Internal Revenue Service (IRS) workers returned to their jobs Jan. 28 after the recent, 35-day government shutdown, an estimated five million pieces of unopened mail awaited.
Equally daunting, the shutdown coincided with the IRS’s hiring of its annual army of temporary workers to process the impending tax season’s mail. The delay now leaves the […]
“You Better Believe It”
Posted on January 30, 2019
Epistemology is what we on the farm called “a $10 word.”
At $10, though, it’s underpriced because epistemology—the study of what we believe, what is true, and the evidence we have to justify that truth and belief—covers a lot of ground.
In short, epistemology is the study of knowledge.
That topic sounds drier than last summer’s […]
No More Wild Swings, Eh?
Posted on January 3, 2019
If the calendar was a baseball game, mid-December would be the bottom of the ninth.
As such, and given 2018’s crazy weather, banner crops, sloppy harvest, muddled export future, and skinny-to-no profit, mid-December finds farmers and ranchers now at bat with two outs and the opposing team’s smoke-throwing relief pitcher on the mound.
Yeah, it’s been a […]
GIPSA is on the move, the “GIPSA rule” is not
Posted on December 19, 2018
GIPSA, the badly named, hard-working mule inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is on the move again over objections that the Trump Administration’s ongoing USDA reorganization will bury it—and other, less obscure parts of the department like the Economic Research Service—in new layers of bureaucracy so deep that none will ever be seen again.
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In the six yrs that Ernst has been on Senate Ag Committee, US taxpayers have sent farmers $109B in *direct farm program payments* ($60B in 2019 & 2020 alone). All the ethanol in the world, let alone Iowa, can’t fix that problem. https://t.co/B5P3nKd87Q
No surprise; the Cotton Gang historically has been the biggest winner in farm bailouts. Also no surprise, Corn & SB Gang whining they didn’t get as much. But biggest non-surprise? No one asking what’s wrong w/ ag policy that requires bailout after bailout. https://t.co/WdlK54MN5J
Equally disturbing is the fact that our farm and political leaders, food companies and eaters don’t care enough about its workers to reform a system fueled natural resource destruction and too much human suffering. https://t.co/pudgHxsUyJ
When you rob Peter to pay Paul you can usually count on Paul’s vote. https://t.co/7GFgFzcguX
Fine, but if any politician or farmer wants taxpayer money to bail out future weather-caused damage to US ag, each must sign a form that acknowledges climate change is real to least get these anti-guv socialists on the record... https://t.co/WUZTNFfuh9