Just say no ... to Archers Daniels Midland

In today's Minneapolis Star Tribune there was a well-reasoned editorial arguing that subsidies to farmers should be capped at $250,000. I encourage you to read it here. As a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, I would support this legislation and would so for a couple of reasons.

First, over 70% of all farm subsidies go to large, corporate farms. There is no reason why we should be doing this ... this is corporate welfare and I am vehemently opposed to giving money to the likes of ADM and Cargill --- especailly when this country has a $400 billion deficit!

Secondly, while I would devote a great deal of the savings from this proposal to deficit reduction; I would also earmark a portion of it to spur rural development. I sincerely believe we need to be encouraging our small farmers to look beyond crop subsidies and start looking instead to the new emerging areas of wind development and biomass as additional sources of revenue and economic development. By promoting wind power, biomass and other innovative programs we can help strengthen and diversify rural Minnesota.