12/20/18

My dear Friend and President, DJT,

Who will be joining you when you sign the farm bill today? My guess is Mitch McConnell will be right behind you, beaming. I think it's great that he has been championing hemp production and that now Kentucky farmers can make big bucks selling crops to make CBD oil. My kid tells me that CBD is too expensive, and the CBD gummy bears she ate didn't do anything. I've never tried CBD, have you?

Will MI Senator Debbie Stabenow be at the signing? Even if you invite her, she may not join you since you are talking about finding a way to make SNAP recipients work 20 hours a week. I think she'll be mad at you since she worked so hard to keep that out of the bill. She's thrilled that rural folks will be getting some broad band and that MI dairy farmers will come out ahead.

Are you sure that it's a good idea to expand the definition of who can be counted as a "farmer" entitled to $125,000 subsidies? According to Taxpayers for Common Sense the new bill allows cousins, nieces and nephews to be part of the farm management team, even if they never go to the farm and do all of their "farming" via Skype. They claim that one "family" farm included 34 "farmers" and got $3.7 million in tax subsidies. That seems excessive, don't you think?

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) are also critical of the REAP part of the bill. It's in the fine print so you might have missed it, but under REAP, the Rural Energy for America Program, ethanol producers will get a bunch of subsidies and catfish famers will get free oxygen monitoring systems. TCS thinks that's a waste of $. Isn't it great that someone read the fine print? I know you and I don't have time for that.

I understand you are convening with House Republicans right now to figure out whether to shut down the government. I think that would be a bad idea! Why ruin Christmas for thousands of families? Is that wall really worth it?

Best,