The price of corn versus the price of freedom

The non profit think tank, Environmental Working Group (EWG), has accumulated an impressive database of information about farm subsidies. Curiously, Nebraska comes in number five on the list of top recipients which is above states like California and Ohio with vastly larger populations. Searching for an answer to this quandary, I tried contacting both U/S Senators from Nebraska, (D)Mike Johanns and (R)Ben Nelson, for an answer to the disproportional allocation of farm subsidies to their state. Neither was available for comment.

An especially alarming statistic is the more than $150 billion a year spent on government sponsored dietary programs and the subsequent medical costs of dealing with arthritis, diabetes and heart disease because of the ubiquity of cheap corn and soy in processed food. The subsidized corn is fed to live stock, used as supplement in refined gasoline (i.e. Ethanol) as well as being omnipresent in the form of high fructose syrup found in a mind-boggling amount of processed foods. Where are the government subsidies for fruit and vegetables? They tout them as being cornerstones to a child's beneficial nutritional plan.

The current governmental plan to deal with the drought is a dubious financial triple dip proposal. The first dip includes the enormous subsidies allocated to the specialty farms. The next dip takes the form of disaster relief insurance like drought. If this weren't enough the triple dip of price hikes will recoup some of the money lost in the aforementioned first and second dip through taxes.

In actuality it's nothing more than a shell game which highlights the collusion between government and big business. At worst it is a form of disinformation which pays lip-service to a glaringly false altruism. When will the smoke and mirror game played on the American public by the insidious marriage between big business and government finally be shut down?