PIML 96061101 / Forwarded to Patriot Information Mailing List: [It looks as though the Freemen may have become free with your tax dollars.] PIML ================================================================== Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 10:52:41 -0400 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: James Bovard on the Freeman Standoff and Farm Subsidies [James Bovard is the author of "Shakedown: How the Government Screws You From A to Z; "Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty; "The Fair Trade Fraud; and "The Farm Fiasco". A regular contributor to "The Wall Street Journal, his editorials also appear in "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", "Newsweek", "Playboy", and "The New Republic". Jim has been at the forefront of calling for full investigations into the Randy Weaver case and the Waco disaster. George Will described him as "a one-man truth squad who is more than a match for tendentious legions of protectionists in American government and industry."] ### from : Jim Bovard 6/4/96 Matt: Considering how the FBI-Freeman standoff is heating up, I thought there might be interest among some of your subscribers on the article I did for the Wall Street Journal on May 21 on that case. Following is a short synopsis (the story is copy-righted by WSJ, so I am not sending full text). While the stranger aspects of the ideology of the self- proclaimed Freemen is widely reported, little attention has been paid to the role of the Agriculture Department in paving the way to this confrontation. Regrettably, federal farm subsidy policies have been even loonier than the Freemen themselves. Ralph Clark, the illiterate grade school dropout who is the mastermind of the Freemen, and his partners have received over $650,000 in farm subsidy payments since 1985, according to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington DC organization. In addition, Clark received almost $2 million in federal farm loans. Most generously, the federal government kept sending him annual payments of almost $50,000 to reward him for not growing on the land he bought with government loans - long after he effectively defaulted on those loans. Why did Clark receive so many government loans? Because he was uncreditworthy. According to the Farmers Home Administration, this alone made him worthy of a windfall of capital. And, since he kept losing money time and again, that proved that he deserved new loans. Clark symbolizes the type of farmer favored by the Farmers Home Administration: big - with a 7000-acre government-paid spread - and incompetent. Clark was a poster boy for farm aid lobbyists in the 1980s - portrayed sympathetically in Life magazine, with Geraldo Rivera on ABC's 20/20, and elsewhere. But, since then, he became a racist and a raving anti-semite, and his panache with the Willie Nelson crowd has suffered. For many farmers, the road to hell has been paved with cheap government credit. FmHA has encouraged many struggling farmers to continue farming until they financially destroy themselves. According to the agency's own records, by far the most frequent cause of bankruptcy among its borrowers is "poor farming practices." The General Accounting Office estimated that a quarter of FmHA bankruptcies occurred because the farmers received too many subsidized loans. GAO noted in 1992: "In some cases, continued FMHA assistance has actually worsened the financial condition of farmers who have entered the program." Under the new so-called "Freedom to Farm" act, the government will remain heavily involved in providing loans to uncreditworthy farmers. Under the recently passed farm bill, the Agriculture Department is authorized to make over $20 billion direct and guaranteed loans to farmers in the next six years; further multi- billion dollar losses are likely. While congressmen brag about how farm programs are being phased out, subsidized lending to farmers is actually scheduled to increase between now and 2002. And midwest Senate Democrats are on the warpath, pushing a bill to defend every farmer's sacred right to further loans after defaulting on the government. **************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. 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