142 South Dakota Farms Get Trump Welfare Payments Above $125K Cap

[TexasTowelie]

The World Trade Organization says Trump’s new sixteen-billion-dollar round of farm bailout checks “could exceed America’s WTO subsidy commitments and unduly influence U.S. planting decisions.” Trump’s last round of farm welfare checks exceeded its own promised limits on payments to individual farms, says the Environmental Working Group:

Nearly 3,500 farms have received more than $125,000 each in bailout payments intended to offset the impacts of President Trump’s trade war, according to an EWG analysis of Department of Agriculture data.

When the USDA announced the Market Facilitation Payments last fall, it said individual capped payments would be limited to $125,000. But data released to EWG under the Freedom of Information Act show that thousands received payments exceeding the limit for crops harvested last year. Of those, 79 farms received more than $500,000 [Scott Faber, Chris Campbell, and Jared Hayes, “FOIA Data Show Thousands Exceed Payment Limit for Trump’s Farm Bailout,” EWG.org, 2019.06.11].

142 South Dakota farms each received more than $125K from Trump’s tariff reparations program. Among those cap-busting payments is $210,512 to Racota Valley Ranch of Hazel, run by Rock Arnold, Governor Kristi Noem’s brother. Racota Valley Ranch has been kept afloat since 1995 with $3.75 million in farm subsidies.

A quick scan of the South Dakota data show $8.65 million in cap-exceeding payments to 41 Hutterite colonies around the state.

http://dakotafreepress.com/2019/06/17/142-sd-farms-get-trump-welfare-payments-above-125k-cap/
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