Subscriber Special: Kicking City Slickers off Farm Subsidies

February 17, 2015 08:40 AM

"When the law's an ass, somebody has to kick it." - Charles Dickens

Forbes

Forbes editorial, by Adam Andrzejewski

KICKING CITY SLICKERS OFF OF FARM SUBSIDIES

Please read our editorial, click here

February 17, 2015

Today, at Forbes, OpenTheBooks.com founder Adam Andrzejewski published an editorial encouraging U.S. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack to write a real definition of "farmer." At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars of federal "farm subsidy" flowing to city slicker farmers.

Last year, our organization, American Transparency at OpenTheBooks.com, issued our Federal Transfer Report on farm subsidies. We studied three urban areas- where there are no farms: New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

We found they were awash in federal farm subsidies.

Farm_Subsidies_-_NY_and_Chicago

Our "heat maps" of federal farm subsidies flowing into New York City and Chicago, IL "Like" and "Share" on Facebook, click here

Read our editorial at Forbes, Kicking City Slickers off of Federal Farm Subsidies, click here.

The federal farm program is a far cry from "protecting the national food supply" and "preserving the family farm." Our discoveries show that wealthy investors piggy-backed on a growing government program and the largess of farm subsidies became part of their investment portfolio.

Among our findings:

Just 491 entities received over $1 million in farm subsidies amounting to over $725.7 million (2008-2011) and averaged $1.734 million each.
In New York City, Wall Street financiers, Rockefellers, wealthy heirs and Upper East side recipients all received subsidies.
Even the non-profit National Audubon Society collected nearly $1 million in subsidies including New York tobacco subsidies and Minnesota lamb slaughter aid.
In Chicago, the city ranks seventh out of over 1,200 municipalities in Illinois in the receipt of federal farm subsidies.

What about Reverend Minister Louis Farrakhan? U.S. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack? Agriculture DC lobbyists? Who are the DC elite pocketing the farm subsidies?

Read our editorial at Forbes, Kicking City Slickers off of Federal Farm Subsidies, click here.

There are billions of taxpayer dollars at stake and the ass needs a kick.

Stay tuned. At OpenTheBooks.com, we have more cool stuff coming soon: deeper data, hotter- faster search, and slick technologies.

Matt