The federal government spends massive sums of money, lets the industry flood the country with mostly nonwhite foreigners both illegally and legally, gives those foreigners and their employers a payroll tax break and lets them undercut workers. On its face, that sounds like terrible policy, but that’s how the United States approaches the farming industry these days.
It’s a patchwork of terrible policies. The federal government spent more than $40 billion on farming subsidies last year as national debt continues to rise [
Star Tribune, October, 31, 2020]. Did they do this to protect an industry with jobs filled by American workers? No, this isn’t like subsidizing, say, the Pennsylvania steel industry or putting a provision in a trade agreement that stipulates that automakers must make a certain percentage of their car in the United States for it to sell here. It’s an inefficient system that not only drives up costs for American consumers and takes jobs away from members of