Monday, June 17, 2013

Capitol Hill's biggest food stamp critic collected millions in farm subsidies



I am no fan of the Daily Kos and their fringe left-wing politics but I stumbled upon this item on their site and thought it was an especially pungent example of hypocrisy in politics.
Congressman Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican, apparently has been making a big splash with his Bible-thumping opposition to the government helping poor people by giving them food stamps.

Yet, Fincher collected nearly $3.5 million in payments from the Agriculture Department’s farm subsidy program from 1999 to 2012.
Researchers at the Environmental Working Group found that Fincher, a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn. (you can’t make this stuff up), received about $70,000 in direct payments in 2012 alone. This is one of those crazy price-support programs that give money to farmers and farmland owner even if they do not grow crops.

According to Daily Kos, it’s unclear how much Fincher received in crop insurance subsidies because the names of people receiving the subsidies are not public.
Here’s the clincher – I guess you could call it the Fincher clincher: He voted for $20 billion in cuts to food stamps and the overall supplemental nutrition program over the next 10 years. He also voted to increase the farm subsidies he's on the receiving end of.

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