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because their lobbys pay lawmakers more!
In capitalism, the people with money make or influence the laws.
Pretty much this. Agriculture subsidies have their roots in the great depression and dust bowl, but we have long since passed the point of having a majority of small family dairy farms. Now the primary beneficiary of subsidies are corporate farms. The USDA and the federal government took a stance of “get big or get out” and that’s what happened. We should not be subsidizing corporations.
There are often talks of carbon taxing, but removing subsidies would seen to be the obvious first step. Subdiside greener options instead.
Removing and reducing subsidies also generally has better polling as well from what I’ve seen
Do you think so? From the people I know I think cutting meat and fossil fuel subsidises would be very unpopular. We have climbing food prices so if meat became more expensive I think there might be uproar - it’s needed though!
Apparently looking back, it’s harder to find some of that polling that I remember reading. It depends on where in the world you are, but here’s some polling showing support for removing or reducing some of the animal agriculture subsidies
A new survey has found that 78 percent of Americans want federal farm funding to prioritize food for people over feed for livestock.
For fossil fuel subsidies, apparently much more polling exists for carbon taxes, so it was actually difficult to find them
https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2021/8/dfp_ending_fossil_fuel_subsidies.pdf
Though in looking back for some of these sources, I did find an interesting study for fossil fuels subsidies showing that the polling for carbon taxes and subsidies was pretty similar in 5 developing countries (Ecuador, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Mexico) with support varying on more of what the money was put towards instead.
Thank you for the links and it is somewhat heartening to read the support for such things!
Because we need to help the shareholders!
Because people view their products as necessities to everyday life. People want to eat meat and and (real) cheese no matter what.
If without subsidies it becomes cheaper to import these types of foods, it becomes a national security issue.
Plus without subsidies this stuff gets more expensive, so people will start complaining
TIL people also eat (real) fossil fuels
because its tradition!
Ah tradition, the argument that has definitely not been used to justify all kinds of problematic and horrific thing
Throw in the trucking industry and the autoindustry for good measure. SUVs and big trucks have caused car fatalities to skyrocket.
Without a class identity and unity we will continue to hand over tax dollars to corporations that do not have our best interests in mind. Working people need to unite against plutocracy.
Because if fuel/milk/meat doubled or tripled in price, and the average member of the developed world would riot, and the guys in charge like being in charge. To the terminally online people, you are not the average. Just because you have a diet that gurgles gonads, or don’t have to drive a lot for your work, doesn’t mean the rest also don’t have to.
