Ayn Rand Fan Rails Against “Parasites” While Taking a Million Bucks in Government Subsidies

As the kids say, hypocrisy much?

The Raytown farmer who posted a sign on a semi-truck trailer accusing Democrats of being the “Party of Parasites” received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995.

But David Jungerman says the payouts don’t contradict the sign he put up in a corn field in Bates County along U.S. 71 Highway.

“That’s just my money coming back to me,” Jungerman, 72, said Monday. “I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite.”

I got mine and screw you! It’s pretty much representative of the whole ideology.

Jungerman said he put up the sign to protest people who pay no taxes, but, “Always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them” in social programs.

Everyone pays taxes, and we all pay about the same rate — rich and poor.

Crop subsidies are different, he said. When crop prices dip below a certain point, the federal government makes up the difference with a subsidy payment.

Right, and how is that different from the government subsidizing other Americans’ livelihoods when they’re in need? The “free market” creates winners and losers, and farm subsidies cushion the fall of the “losers” just as unemployment benefits do.

According to a farm subsidy data base, Jungerman received $1,095,101 in the past 15 years, including $224,763 in 2000. Last year, he received $34,303.

I’m amazed at how many people believe that the lion’s share of our public spending helps the poor and the downtrodden. The truth is that we have a tattered social safety net that consumes a very small part of the federal budget. The vast majority of federal dollars do not end up in the pockets of people lower down on the economic ladder, but that’s a story that’s unfathomable to the anti-government Right.