Kicking City Slickers Off Of The Federal Farm Subsidy

 

There’s an old saying, “When the law’s an ass, somebody has to kick it.”

With tens of millions of dollars in federal farm subsidies flowing into urban areas – where there are no farms – Congress empowered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to more-clearly define the word “farmer.”

With a new definition coming soon, many wealthy urban residents just might be booted off of their substantial federal subsidy.  It couldn’t happen fast enough.

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.

A “heat map” of over 10,800 entities receiving > $250,000 in farm subsidies (2008-2011).

The federal farm program was originally intended to “protect the national food supply” and “preserve the family farm.” Yet, our findings showed wealthy investors piggy-backing on a growing government program – the largess of farm subsidies had become part of their investment portfolio. Many of these wealthy investors don’t live in “rural areas,” but instead utilize “farm managers” and taxpayer dollars to maximize return on their “farm” investments.

The amounts are significant with the top 10,806 entities receiving billions. For example, 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, IL, the city ranks seventh out of over 1,200 municipalities in the state in the receipt of federal farm subsidies.  It’s 930 individual entities collecting the subsidy including wealthy traders at the Board of Trade and downtown duck charities reaping millions. Even Reverend Minister Louis Farrakhan, the founder of the Nation of Islam, opened up two charities and collected over $317,000 of farm subsidies and commodities loans during a sixteen year period.  Interestingly, the IRS and Illinois Attorney General have no record of either charity.

In Washington, D.C., the U.S.Department of Agriculture executives and lobbyists – the people who created and manage these transfers – participate in the subsidy largess.  Now, Congress charged them as the regulators who will write the new definition of “farmer.”

So who are the DC elite pocketing the farm subsidies? Thomas J. Vilsack- current Agriculture Secretary in the President Barack Obama administration is taking his farm subsidy check in Iowa. Vilsack is the recipient of $20,046 of farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011, most while he’s been Secretary.

The subsidies are bi-partisan: William T. Hawks- former Under-Secretary of Agriculture of Marketing and Regulatory Programs in the George W. Bush administration has received over $70,527 in farm subsidy relating to his ownership of Mississippi farm interests. Most of the subsidy related to conservation payments as well as cotton subsidies. Sen. Chuck E. Grassley received over $61,284 in subsidy collected at his Arlington, VA condo for his farm operation in Iowa.

Of course, the lobbyists get in on the action too. Using our data at OpenTheBooks.com, Susan Ferrachio at the Washington Examiner found that Van Boyette is a top lobbyist representing agricultural interests who’s received $83,194 for his farmland in Iowa. Other top lobbyists include the lobbying giant Gerald Cassady ($6,780); former twelve term Rep. Charlie Stenholm ($12,576); and Carlyle Thorsen ($8,164), a former top aide to House Majority Leader Tom Delay.

So, the big question is reform. Can the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut the rich, land invested, city slicker off of the federal government’s subsidy?

The stakes for taxpayers are high.

According to a 2011 report by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous,” the IRS and USDA determined that $316 million in farm subsidies were paid to millionaires (2002-2009). The gross majority of those payments went to millionaire recipients in urban areas. In Coburn’s report, rockers Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, media mogul Ted Turner, and former NBA star Scottie Pippen were highlighted for receiving large subsidies.

There’s billions of taxpayer dollars at stake. The ass needs a kick.

***

Note: Adam Andrzejewski is the chairman of American Transparency and the founder of OpenTheBooks.com. He is the author of the federal oversight

Kicking City Slickers Off Of The Federal Farm Subsidy

Genoa pushing for Amtrak project change | Daily Chronicle

GENOA – Genoa Mayor Mark Vicary hopes persistence will convince state leaders to change plans for an Amtrak passenger rail service so a stop is built in Genoa.

Vicary sent a letter to Gov. Bruce Rauner and his staff last week asking them to cancel the project and review an alternate route between Rockford and Chicago that includes stops in Genoa and Freeport. Vicary says choosing that route would save the state millions.

Vicary said a Rauner staffer replied, suggesting he set up a meeting with Brian Oszakiewski, Rauner’s infrastructure policy adviser.

“It’s just a refreshing change that we’ve got someone who cares enough to actually review, to make a thorough analysis instead of just relying on the political process,” Vicary said.

Meanwhile, plans to extend Amtrak service from Chicago to Rockford are on hold, along with all other major projects from the Illinois Department of Transportation, department spokesman Guy Tridgell said.

Tridgell declined to elaborate on how long state leaders would take to review projects or if they would be open to changes, but at least one of the towns already has spent tens of thousands of dollars planning to build an Amtrak station there.

Under the agreement announced in April with the Union Pacific Railroad, Amtrak would offer a single round-trip service daily between Rockford and Chicago by the end of this year, Tridgell said.

There would be stops in Elgin, Huntley and Belvidere, and a second daily round-trip option would be added in 2016 when improvements are complete.

The service originally was planned to run on Canadian National Railway tracks, but after years of failed negotiations with the Montreal-based company, officials were able to finalize an agreement last year to switch to a new route that used tracks owned by Metra and the Union Pacific Railroad.

But Vicary questions whether then-Gov. Pat Quinn made the $233 million decision with the state’s budget constraints in mind.

“This project was not thoroughly negotiated for the best interests of the taxpayers and envisioned with the original $60 million route based on a recent state consultant study,” Vicary wrote in his letter to Rauner. “Instead, former Gov. Quinn’s impulsive blunder is now a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar boondoggle.”

Meanwhile, Huntley village leaders believe the project – as presently planned – ultimately will move forward, Huntley Village Manager Dave Johnson said.

He plans to check with state officials in a week for an update on the project’s review

Johnson estimated the village[of Huntley] has spent $50,000 of the $400,000 budgeted for project engineering plans so far.

“It’s a significant part of the village of Huntley moving forward with our downtown renovation project,” Johnson said. “It’s an important part of our community, as well.”

Read the rest of the story:  Genoa pushing for Amtrak project change | Daily Chronicle

PREVIEW: Mayor Hopes for Governor's Support for Amtrak Project

 

ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- Rockford's mayor says, like many of us, he'll be paying close attention to what Governor Bruce Rauner has to say at Wednesday's budget address.

Mayor Larry Morrissey says he's hoping the Governor mentions new funding for education to help bring down property taxes. The mayor says that and funding a project to bring Amtrak service to Rockford will have a major impact on the Forest City moving forward and he hopes the Governor sees our community as a priority.

"Ultimately, the Governor wants to move projects forward that make sense for him and the state of Illinois, we think that project makes a lot of sense, and any necessary appropriation we hope that he would support the legislature providing it in the budget," says Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey.

PREVIEW: Mayor Hopes for Governor's Support for Amtrak Project

No Appointments or Job Openings in Boone County Government

Above is taken from:  http://www.boonecountyil.org/page/employment-opportunities

Obama Immigration Policy Halted by Federal Judge in Texas - NYTimes.com

 

A federal judge in Texas has ordered a halt, at least temporarily, to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, siding with Texas and 25 other states that filed a lawsuit opposing the initiatives.

In an order filed on Monday, the judge, Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, prohibited the Obama administration from carrying out programs the president announced in November that would offer protection from deportation and work permits to as many as five million undocumented immigrants. The first of those programs was scheduled to start receiving applications on Wednesday.

Judge Hanen, an outspoken critic of the administration on immigration policy, found that the states had satisfied the minimum legal requirements to bring their lawsuit. He said the Obama administration had failed to comply with basic administrative procedures for putting such a sweeping program into effect.

The administration argued that Mr. Obama was well within long-established federal authority for a president to decide how to enforce the immigration laws. But Texas and the other states said the executive measures were an egregious case of government by fiat that would impose huge new costs on their budgets.

Mr. Obama said he was using executive powers to focus enforcement agents on deporting serious criminals and those posing threats to national security. Three-year deportation deferrals and work permits were offered for undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes, have been here at least five years and have children who are American citizens or legal residents.

As part of the package, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also established new priorities, instructing enforcement agents to concentrate on deporting the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists and gang members, as well as migrants caught crossing the border illegally.

Since the lawsuit was filed on Dec. 3, the stark divisions over Mr. Obama’s sweeping actions have played out in filings in the case. Three senators and 65 House members, all Republicans, signed a legal brief opposing the president that was filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal action organization.

Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, who is known for crackdowns on people living in the country illegally, also filed a brief supporting the states’ lawsuit. In December, a federal judge in Washington dismissed a separate lawsuit by Sheriff Arpaio seeking to stop the president’s actions.

On the other side, Washington and 11 other states as well as the District of Columbia weighed in supporting Mr. Obama, arguing that they would benefit from the increased wages and taxes that would result if illegal immigrant workers came out of the underground. The mayors of 33 cities, including New York and Los Angeles, and the Conference of Mayors also supported Mr. Obama.

“The strong entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants to the United States has significantly boosted local economies and local labor markets,” the mayors wrote in their filing.

Some legal scholars said any order by Judge Hanen to halt the president’s actions would be quickly suspended by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

“Federal supremacy with respect to immigration matters makes the states a kind of interloper in disputes between the president and Congress,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “They don’t have any right of their own.”

The states’ lawsuit quotes Mr. Obama as saying many times in recent years that he did not have authority to take actions as broad as those he ultimately took. Mr. Tribe said that argument was not likely to pass muster with appeals court judges….

Read the entire article by clicking on the following:  Obama Immigration Policy Halted by Federal Judge in Texas - NYTimes.com

Planning Staff continues to recommends denial of revised WECS text amendment

NEWS FLASH February 17, 7:30 pm:  No surprise—with its new membership Regional Planning Commission recommends approval of the text amendment by a vote of 4-1.  Planning staff recommended denial.

 

The Boone County Regional Planning Commission meet at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at Belvidere City Hall.  Several individual members on this commission  have been replace on this board so many anticipate a very different decision from last month’s 3-2 denial.

The entire recommendation is available at:  http://www.boonecountyil.org/sites/default/files/BCRPC%20Feb%2017a.pdf

 

The proposed “revised” text amendment is shown below.  Changes from current ordinance are in red.

 

 

 

 

Did Boone County’s ad hoc committee break the Illinois Open Meetings Act?

On January 14, 2015  Boone County’s  Breeding/Boarding Ordinance Advisory Committee held an unannounced meeting which did not comply with the requirements of the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

Below  are the minutes from the November 2014 meeting of the Planning, Zoning and Building Committee. As shown on page 3 of these minutes, Mr. Ellingson, chairman of this special committee, was advised to consult the States Attorney concerning whether  the ad hoc committee is subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act (by Mr.Johnson) and advised by County Administrator, K. Terrinoni, that it  “should be subject to the Open Meetings Act”

 

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Despite these warnings, Mr Ellingson sent out the following email to committee members on January 7, 2015.  (This email was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Mr. Zanter)

Take special note of the second paragraph in which Mr. Ellingson states that an ad hoc committee does not have to adhere to the Open Meeting Act and additionally asks that committee members to:  “Please do not tell others about where or when these meetings are set for so we can meet without interference”

The question now-- was the January 14 meeting illegal and should Boone County be cited by the Illinois Attorney General?