First News Article Round-Up of 2011

Here's my first news-article round-up of 2011...

http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb-gwinnett-receive-federal-784889.html

Cobb and Gwinnett Counties rejected participating in MARTA back in the 1970s and Gwinnett rejected it once again in the 1990s.  This is a significant turnaround.  Whatever concerns there are about costs and importing hooligans via train (crime around Lenox went up soon after MARTA connected there) must've paled in the face of the possibility of $4 per gallon gasoline starting next summer.

Given Atlanta's notorious traffic, anything that will take cars off the road will certainly be beneficial.  Although the project paying for itself via fares is unlikely, reducing congestion and air pollution will be a major benefit and in my opinion, worth paying for.

And including Cobb and Gwinnett in MARTA might improve the governance of the organization, which has been plagued by boneheadedness and corruption in the past.

Of course, there's the issue of finding money to pay for MARTA expansion, especially in a time of budget deficits.  I don't think monies from the TSPLOST voters will vote on in 2012 can be used to pay for MARTA operations, but they could be used to pay for building the lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/asia/04china.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/world/asia/index.jsonp&adxnnlx=1294156855-LPhLoeD57e9INs3S6Z+r/Q

This is good news.  Considering how the alternative to reprocessing nuclear fuel is burying it somewhere for 10,000 years (and making sure our descendants know not to mess with it) or letting it pile up at the nuclear plants themselves, this is very good news.

One quibble: The article states that the National Research Council found that Bush's reprocessing program would have been uneconomical.  Here's the actual report and it's much more nuanced--the technology is not at the point needed to justify an accelerated timetable for building reprocessing sites. 

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?recordid=11998

That does NOT mean that reprocessing in the United States is uneconomical.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/to-beat-back-poverty-pay-the-poor/

Now this is interesting.  It reminds me of something that Richard Nixon proposed back in the 1970s, a guaranteed minimum income.

I'm not a big fan of handouts, but in the countries where this has been implemented, they've imposed all sorts of conditions on it like making sure one's children are educated and giving the monies to women rather than men. 

(Lest anyone accuse me of bashing men, I read about micro-financing in Haiti and how they gave the money to women because the men would gamble it all away on cock-fighting.) 

In the long run, this could break the cycle of poverty, producing a net gain in income (from educated workers rather than vagrants) and savings (lower incarceration and law-enforcement costs, for one).

However, IF such a thing were to be implemented, I would make it conditional on not drinking, smoking, and especially doing illegal drugs.  Drug- and alcohol-testing is surely doable.  Including classes for the adults receiving the monies would also be a good idea, since lack of education contributes to poverty and related problems, plus there is a "culture of poverty" that makes things worse for the poor that needs to be eradicated.

A Green Way for Local Governments to Make More Money

Here's a blog post I've had rattling around my head for awhile but never got around to writing down due to more timely things like the Predators film popping up.

Due to the recession, a lot of local governments are running into financial problems and have had to make a lot of cuts, some of which are very painful.  In McDonough, where I live, the library is now closed on weekends and its hours when it is open are greatly truncated.  Although I can understand the financial pressues, this will make it harder for children in schools to do research and homework (especially if they don't have computers at home), make it harder for the unemployed to find work (especially if they don't have computers at home), and make it more difficult for particularly inqusitive children to learn on their own.

(One government entity I feel particularly obligated to is the Cobb County public library system, since it provided so many books for me to read at no cost to me personally.  Without them, I would not be as intelligent or well-read as I am today.)

And that's something that I'm aware of because it affects me personally.  I don't pay a lot of attention to McDonough politics (although I should, since I live here), so there're probably lots of other cuts that affect other people, especially if its jobs that are cut.

Now that I've pointed out the problem, onto the solution...

In the city of Griffin where I work, the city's solid waste department was historically a money-loser, needing large subsidies from the city's general fund.  The high end of these subsidies was $500,000 or even $1,000,000, depending on who you ask.  That's a LOT of money, which could be used to improve the city's infrastructure or for tax-cuts.

Then the city adopted both mandatory recycling and a flow-control ordinance in which all garbage collected within city limits had to go to the city's landfill or recycling center.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/7436810/article-Solid-Waste-Division-sees-financial-improvement?

These two measures not only eliminated the losses Solid Waste actually incurred, but is slated to profit the city $75,000 in the next fiscal year.  It might be profitable already, since recyclables from McDonough, Jackson, and other cities were not budgeted and the fiscal year was not over when I wrote these stories.

(Re: flow-control, I'm not a big fan of monopolies on principle, but the garbage-collecting entities do use city resources to compete with the city.  What business aids and abets its competitors?  There's also the matter of accurately measuring the waste generated in the city, to satisfy the feds.)

If municipalities established mandatory recycling programs and, if they have the necessary facilities, a flow-control ordinance, this could provide a new revenue source in times of economic distress.  Granted, there will be an initial cost and it might prove problematic to get people to agree to mandatory recycling, but there's always the carrot of reducing or eliminating budget cuts in future years and property-tax reductions if it proves especially profitable.

(Francis told me over 2/3 of household waste is recyclable and given how much of my garbage I take to Griffin to throw out vs. how much I put in my apartment's trash-compactor, in some cases, it's even more than that.  There's a lot of waste to be recycled and, consequently, a lot of money to be made.)

There's also the long-term environmental benefits, but those are harder to quantify in terms of dollars and cents.  Sufficient to say, the more waste is recycled, fewer trees will be cut down and fewer mountains torn open to mine for minerals.

Perhaps I'll drop in on the Henry County Board of Commissioners (they're more responsible for funding the library) or the McDonough Board of Commissioners (it'd be easier for a city to mimic Griffin's program, since both are municipalities) and suggest this.  Or maybe write a letter to the Henry Herald.

Although this IS more government control (if the recycling program is mandatory, the only way to make it profitable), in my opinion, this is the lesser evil than vital services being cut.

What do you all think?

A Constructive Suggestion...

A conclusion I've reached in recent years is that anyone can complain about something.  Coming up with a solution to a problem, however, is far more respectable and constructive.

I've complained about farm subsidies in the Political Chat section of AH.com and the one good argument I've heard in favor of it is that it keeps agricultural land in agriculture.  If farm subsidies were abolished or drastically cut, many farms would be sold to developers and urbanized.  This destroys or at least greatly diminishes their potential agricultural productivity.

(Dave Howery, who made the argument, said topsoil is trucked away and dumped somewhere.  From personal experience, I've seen areas cleared down to the clay and then left fallow turn into fields with tall grass and young trees in less than two years, but that's not the same as consistently-productive farmland.  It could easily be years if not decades before the soil quality is restored.)

Dave was concerned about the US becoming dependent on imported food, something that could theoretically happen if a significant quantity of our farmland is turned into suburbs.  And then there's the whole issue of America's food exports on top of that.

So I pondered a solution to the problem.  Here's what I've come up with:

Abolish agricultural subsidies and when the farms fail (let's not kid ourselves--many will), have the National Park Service or whoever is in charge of this kind of thing buy the land and let it return to nature.  It will regain its productivity as the years go by and thousands of plants and animals live and die above it and, if need be, it can be cleared and farmed again.

In areas where many farmers sell out and leave the land, you could restore large chunks of territory to its natural state.  Animals long absent from the territory could be reintroduced.  Heck, I've heard someone suggest restoring elephants to North America (they lived here during the Pleistocene period, not all that long ago in terms of geologic time), while if you really wanted to go hog-wild and had the necessary science, you could bring back the mammoths.

(I do hope nobody is going to seize on my comment about mammoths and use that to write off my entire argument as bonkers.)

Now, lest I be accused of supporting some un-conservative government spending program, unless one is shelling out colossal sums, a one-time payment of buying the land of farmers who no longer find it cost-efficient to farm is financially more responsible than paying out subsidies year after year, forever and ever, amen.

Furthermore, it would pay to be prudent if you get a large tract of territory being returned to a natural state and you want to bring back large animals.  I sometimes frequent FreeRepublic, the online loony-conservative forum, and one of them cited a case of a man who got into legal trouble after shooting a bear that was heading towards his sheepfold in a threatening manner.

If one is going to reintroduce large and potentially dangerous creatures, this should be done only in areas where there aren't any people left at all.  Furthermore, the rights of people to defend themselves, their families, their livestock, and their property against predators should be strengthened accordingly, lest there be incidents.

More Farm Subsidies Foolishness

Here's something I read online today.  The US is now in the business of subsidizing Brazilian cotton farmers as well as our own.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100412/us_time/08599197896300

Let's see--instead of cutting $147.3 million per year from our own budget and thus helping, however incrementally, to close our yawning deficit, we instead spend an additional $147.3 million per year to effectively buy off Brazil.

That's spending nearly $300 million per year instead of cutting nearly $150 million per year.  That's not something we need to be doing right now.

The article also has the good point that cotton production is rather environmentally taxing.  I'm not some hippie who would rather people suffer than plants, but if our subsidy policy is encouraging irresponsible use of natural resources, that's another reason to get rid of it.

My Farm Subsidies Editorial

Imagine you’re a cotton farmer in West Africa. One day, the man who comes to buy your cotton to be exported does not show up. You go to the marketplace and find there is nobody willing to buy your cotton. In fact, there is cheaper cotton available from abroad.

You now cannot sell your crop, or at least you cannot sell it for very much. You need to buy food and fertilizer, and your children need medicine and money to pay for schooling. You’re in trouble now.

Are these the workings of the free market? No. The reason the foreign cotton was able to price the West African cotton out of the market is because it came from the United States and was heavily subsidized.

Cotton subsidies are one of the most notorious examples of government agricultural supports and it gives American cotton producers an unfair advantage over more efficient producers abroad. For example, in Burkina Faso, it costs one-third as much to produce cotton as it does in the United States. According to the British aid agency Oxfam, the only clear advantage American cotton growers have over competitors in Africa is their ability to get government subsidies.

If American cotton subsidies were eliminated, the income of West African cotton farmers would increase 2.3 to 5.7 percent. This additional income could pay for health care for four to ten individuals for an entire year, schooling for one to ten children, or enough food to feed one or two children for an entire year. American cotton subsidies are more than double the amount of humanitarian aid we send to these countries every year.

Cotton subsidies aren’t the only villain. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, heavily-subsidized American corn has flooded Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, never mind the fact that “dumping” is illegal. According to The Public Citizen, this corn is 30 percent below cost and Mexican farmers cannot compete with this. This has destroyed much of Mexico’s agriculture and caused widespread hunger among the 15 million Mexicans who depend on the corn industry.

According to the World Bank, if First World nations eliminated all agricultural subsidies and tariffs, 144 million people would be pulled out of extreme poverty by 2015. In the case of Africa, if the continent increased its exports by 1 percent, it would generate an additional $70 billion each year, more than five times the amount the continent receives in foreign aid.

Not only are American agricultural subsidies destructive to foreign economies, but they are destructive to our own. American agricultural producers already received enormous sums of money when then-President George W. Bush added an addition $190 billion over 10 years in farm subsidies to the federal budget. In a time of deficits, recession, and war, this kind of spending to essentially secure the votes of Iowans cannot be tolerated.

Furthermore, the practice of subsidizing agriculture puts the U.S. government in the position of both causing and treating major American health problems. Corn subsidies make products containing unhealthy high-fructose corn syrup cheaper and thus more easily purchased and consumed in enormous quantities.

High-fructose corn syrup contributes to many health problems like obesity and diabetes and those cost money. According to the New York Times, three-fourths of health-care spending goes to prevent “preventable chronic diseases,” many of which are caused by a poor diet. For example, U.S. spends $147 billion to treat obesity and $116 billion to treat diabetes, as well as hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular diseases and other cancers that result from the typical unhealthy American diet. 30 percent of the increase in health-care spending in the United States in the last 20 years can be attributed to obesity alone. If corn subsidies were cut, the amount spent on health care in this country would decline greatly.

Furthermore, by destroying the Mexican corn industry, farm subsidies have also contributed to illegal immigration. The former farmers in Mexico, not content to starve at home, have come to the United States regardless of whether it is legal for them to do so. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, illegal immigration costs state, local, and federal governments $45 billion to $55 billion per year.

Although the farm subsidies were originally intended to preserve small family farms, the primary beneficiaries of federal largesse are not these farmers, but large agribusinesses. Nearly three-fourths of all subsidies went to the top 10 percent of agribusinesses in 2001. For example, Arkansas Tyler Farms received $8.1 million in subsidies, 90,000 times the average payment of $899. Several Fortune 500 companies like Chevron and John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance receive large sums. These subsidies enable agribusinesses to buy out family farms or undercut them using economies of scale. This produces what one government official has called “the plantation effect.”

In short, Americans are being taxed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, at home and abroad, and to make themselves fatter besides.

President Barack Obama, in one of the few fiscally conservative things he has done, has advocated cutting these subsidies. In his Fiscal Year 2010 budget, subsidy payments to farmers making over $500,000 per year are being phased out, as are subsidies for cotton storage. The elimination of storage payments alone will save $570 million, while eliminating payments to high-income farmers will save $126 million. Eliminating direct payments to farms with sales over $500,000 will save $9.765 billion, while abolishing federal payment of crop insurance premiums and underwriting gains and fees will save $5.184 billion.

The above figures do not include the reduction in health-care costs that the resulting price increases in soft drinks will entail, the reduction in foreign aid that the enrichment of countries whose agriculture we are destroying will make possible, and the reduction in the costs of illegal immigration.

Earlier versions of this column appeared on the blog “Seeking Liberty,” in The Red and Black, and The Griffin Daily News.

“Seeking Liberty”

The Real Cost of Agricultural Subsidies

The Red and Black

Farm Subsidies Create Poverty

The Griffin Daily News

Agricultural Subsidies a Drain on the Budget