Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I don't know one way or the other. Either they're subsidized as compared to other businesses by being expressly exempt or they're subsidized by being implicitly exempt, because there's no enforcement of the rules. Take your pick, my point's the same either way: farmers have a source of labor at below-market rates. That's a subsidy, if not a directly fiscal one. Why should farms be exempt, but not auto cos., steel cos., coal cos., etc.? It causes a misallocation of resources towards farming, that does not increase (US) societal welfare). If the concern is national security (we need domestic supplies of grain), then give farmers a fixed amount of money each year (per acre) simply to produce.
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We are in agreement re: subsidies. My point is more that you seemed to be feeling that farms got stuff cheap not just from the feds but because they ignore min wage laws by hiring illegals who won't complain. My point is, part of a revised policy would have to involve actually imposing a min wage on farmers, not just hiring more INS people to clean out all those brown people.
Here's some 2001 Idaho press release about how they put in the min wage for farm workers so that they ahve the same protections as other citizens.
http://www2.state.id.us/gov/mediacen...1/Pr01_040.htm
Edited to add that partly also this is important because, fuck, if the farm lobby is strong enough to have gotten out of the minimum wage AND gotten water subsidies AND gotten direct subsidies, the kind of reform you all are envisioning just ain't gonna happen.
But you may dream your dream of free-market Utopia while your red states continue to keep large portions of their economies from actually, god forbid, having to compete in a market. Market forces really should only apply to other people, not them. Only the little people suffer market forces.
