Farmers

Agriculture is under attack.

United States’ governments at all levels have for decades been at war with America and Americans.

As subsidies continue to enrich the rich, it’s time to radically reform U.S. farm programs.

The taxpayer-subsidized “safety net” for agricultural producers represents a long-standing policy failure that would make a Soviet central planner blush.

In a December 60 Minutes interview, House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke of the need for regulatory reform.

Michelle Obama’s Partnership With Activist Celebrity Chef Tom Colicchio Puts Minimum Wage and Organic Farming Issues Ahead of Fighting Hunger

It’s planting season, and farmers are taking to the fields to put food on our tables. Even though Ted Cruz has withdrawn from the presidential race, his victory in the Iowa Caucuses caused political pundits of all stripes to speculate about the future of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) and the corn ethanol mandate, largely because someone, Cruz, had finally campaigned against the ethanol mandate and managed to win in Iowa. While some wonks in Washington, DC may talk about a political end for the ethanol mandate, for the nation’s farmers, the biofuel bubble has already burst.

Last Monday was Presidents Day. But that holiday is relatively new – an amalgamation of the birthdays of George Washington (President #1, February 22) and Abraham Lincoln (President #16, February 12). It is now a day set aside to celebrate all American Commanders-in-Chief.

Early in his campaign, now top-tier Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson, supported ethanol—a position for which I called him out. It has long been thought, that to win in Iowa, a candidate must support ethanol.

In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Paul Driessen from a Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and Heartland Institute research fellow Isaac Orr discuss the environmental and economic impacts of ethanol in the United States. The podcast sheds light on the empty promises of ethanol such as energy independence and environmental benefits.

Twenty-nine states, more than half the stars on the American flag, have filed lawsuits against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for redefining the “Waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, erasing “navigable” and usurping states’ rights by including local seasonal streams, farm irrigation ponds, roadside ditches, and even “connective” dry lands placed under authority of the Clean Water Act.

Both of the nation’s retail hardware behemoths, Home Depot and Lowe’s, recently sold out to activists in ways that are the corporate equivalent of a dog’s putting his tail between his legs and slinking away from a bully. Home Depot announced that by the end of this year it will stop selling vinyl flooring that contains a class of chemicals called phthalates. It described the move as an effort to “continually challenge our suppliers to develop new, innovative options for our customers.” Baloney. What the company did was abandon both science and its customers under pressure from the activist group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, which sponsors the “Mind the Store” campaign that has been strong-arming retailers to remove safe, useful, and affordable products from shelves.

We have noted time and again how government – in the name of helping the Little Guy – eviscerates the Little Guy.