Poverty, Healthcare, & Agriculture

To somewhat flesh-out some of what I was saying yesterday about how the poverty level is determined, today I am sharing some great reads.

My friend from the AccionUSA days, Tina Valverde, pointed me to a great article asking, "Why are libertarian rightists defending a dysfunctional, state-engineered food system?"

While I'm not at all interested in Libertarian politics (I'm vehemently opposed often), it's a great article chock-full of excellent links to articles offering a history of food subsidies and pointing out the unintended harms of maintaining this corporate welfare.

An oldy, but goody, from the CATO Institute presents a case against Archer Daniels Midland (ack! two links to libertarian-aligned articles! what strange bedfellows).

Then there is this great article form the New Yorker from last year that discusses the intersections of health care policy and agricultural policy.

And to be fair, here's a public relations piece "a farmer in Missouri who will spend the next 6 weeks on a combine." But the piece reeks of lobbyist-talking points and slicker than subsidized-corn oil.