NTF Issue Paper: legwatch47.doc. 7-07.

NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM ISSUE PAPER:
HOGS AT THE TROUGH: STATE SENATORS RECEIVING AG-SUBSIDIES.

BACKGROUND. A great storm of controversy swirls around how to revise national agricultural and farm policies promulgated by our elected officials in Washington, D.C. One point of controversy is the great numbers of taxpayer dollars paid to farmers/farm owners as subsidies for their crops or paid them to not plant crops. An organization named Ecological Working Group, based in D.C., periodically updates a database on its web site, detailing how many subsidy dollars each farm owner or farm partnership received in each U.S. county. NTF cross checked this database against the list of current state senators and found 10 of 49 who have accepted subsidies. Perhaps other state senators accepted subsidies that we could not discover, because the entities accepting the dollars were not listed under senator name or appeared in names of other family members or relatives. We hope that our future crop of state senators use their positions to restore free market principles to the NE agricultural sector.

TAX SUBSIDY RECIPIENTS.

State Sen. Carroll Burling	Kenesaw	District 33	1995-2005	$91,008
State Sen. Mark Christensen	Imperial	District 44	1995-2005	$34,355
State Sen. M. Dierks	Ewing	District 40	1995-2005	$6,229
State Sen. Phil Erdman	Bayard	District 47	1995-2005	$16,285
State Sen. Deb Fischer	Valentine	District 43	1995-2005	$10,103
State Sen. Lavon Heidemann	Elk Creek	District 1	1995-2005	$43,652
State Sen. John Nelson	Omaha	District 6	1995-2005	$15,670
State Sen. Ron Raikes	Ashland	District 25	1995-2005	$12,269
State Sen. Norm Wallman	Cortland	District 30	1995-2005	$184,673
State Sen. John Wightman	Lexington	District 36	1995-2005	$75,785

TAKE ACTION NOW. Most of the above state senators earn very low scores on our annual NTF voting records that track votes on fiscal matters such as taxes and spending. Therefore, no surprise that they generously gorge themselves on taxpayer dollars at the federal level. Senators in odd-numbered districts face re-election in 2008; those in even-numbered districts face re-election in 2010. We urge NTF members actively to seek out fiscally conservative challengers to replace the Big Spenders/High Taxers in our Unicameral legislature!