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Dec. 8, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
24:54
Here Comes The $12 Billion Farm Aid Bill - Is There A Better Way?

President Trump is expected to unveil a $12 billion bill to assist farmers today. It is an unnecessary expense brought about by bad policies. Fortunately there is a better way...

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Time Text
Government Solutions? 00:12:15
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Happy Monday, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing good.
Thank you.
All right.
Excellent.
The country's budget is not doing well.
No, no, no.
So should we talk about it and find out if we can find a doctor to take care of this?
That's what it is.
It's a sick budget.
But there's a lot of people hurting because of precise conditions that they never talk about.
They don't say, well, maybe the problem is the government's doing too much, spend too much money, the debt is too high, and they print too much money, and they over-regulate.
But they don't even talk about that.
They talk about other things.
They say, well, each group of people who are suffering, they come to the government, and guess what they want?
The solution for too much money and artificial interest rates and all the Fed is doing.
Guess what they want?
They want more of it.
Give us more money.
Oh, you want to put up the money, and that's how you're going to solve the inflation.
Hardly.
But the one issue that they're up working with now is Trump, zero hedge today, Trump expected to roll out a $12 billion farm aid bill today.
$12 billion.
Why couldn't it have been $15 or $10?
But the farmers are in trouble.
You know, it always happens that way.
But, you know, they could think about, well, I wonder if there's any backfire going on with tariffs.
You know, maybe that's it because, you know, selling soybeans had to do with tariffs.
And the farmers were hurting.
I think that's involved.
But they don't want to look for the source because it puts the blame on the politicians.
And it's bilateral, you know, bipartisan.
Both parties have given all these to get the foreign vote.
And then there are other votes, too, that you have to get.
And it's always buying it.
And once there was an explanation, and the name given for this is plunder.
Plunder one group of people and give it to somebody else and the whole economy goes down.
That's what's happening.
It's $12 billion.
And now they're over budget.
They're trying to get the budget ready for the beginning of the year, which who knows what's going to happen.
But I think it's totally foolish.
It's more than Trump wanted, although it's his bill.
We could have done a little bit less.
And all that talk, it's sort of sickening to listen to the nonsense they give.
And they do it in such a pious way that we're the ones who care for people.
And if you don't vote for this, you know, oh, you're deserting the political party.
What are you doing here?
Why do you call yourself a Republican?
You won't vote for this stuff.
Then they get angry at you.
So this is nonsense, but it is perfectly understandable and predictable because this is the kind of infighting you will see, I think, and get much worse.
And that is when a country goes bankrupt.
We're in the bankruptcy, which really the initial state and the initial issue that announced the bankruptcy, of course, was back in 71 when we had to default on the currency, which was the beginning of the end.
Of course, the beginning of the end was in 1913 when they created the Fed, because there's a lot of people who knew about that.
And there's a lot of people who knew that Bretton Woods and these other things that they did after World War II wouldn't work.
And we're at that point, but there's no admission in Congress.
I'll bet you we could find maybe we could find six people, maybe close to ten.
That is a little bit of sympathy, but everything else is short-term.
How do we bail them?
How do we fool the people?
And how do we get by on this?
And we'll have to want to fib a little bit, but politicians get away with that, so it won't hurt.
And if you do resist, boy, that's that when you get blackballed.
And we're seeing a few good people now even changing their money mind.
And we've talked about the people changing mind about how much waste there is in Ukraine and in the Middle East.
And I think that's all healthy.
But right now, they should admit and say this is bad news.
Some of these bills have to be paid for.
And the best way to do it is move in the direction of free market policies and sound money.
And that is the quickest way to fix things if they're serious about it.
Yeah, you know, I hesitated to pick up this topic today.
You suggested it, but you know, you raise cows and I raise ducks.
I was thinking maybe we'd get our check.
You know, I don't want to upset the Apple Card.
I guess we shouldn't hold our breath on that.
But put up that first clip.
Now, this is a classic government situation.
The government creates the problem and then it comes forward with the solution and wants credit for the solution to a problem that it created here.
And, you know, here, the farmers aren't the villains, definitely not.
They're the victims in a way.
So here's the article: $12 billion bill.
It's going to come out today.
It'll include up to $11 billion in one-time payments to crop farmers under the Department of Agriculture's newly designated Farmer Bridge Assistant Program.
The rest will go to crops not covered by the program.
So you wonder what happened?
Did we have a massive crop failure?
Did we have, we're out of water?
Was there a hurricane, tornado?
No, actually, it's not that, Dr. Paul.
Go to the next one.
Here is the problem that causes the government to spend another $12 billion.
The aid comes as farmers express rising frustration over the slow pace of Chinese purchases, which Beijing instituted earlier this year.
And I highlight in retaliation for Trump's tariffs.
The package will be announced at 2 p.m., et cetera, et cetera.
So this is a problem for all of the bragging, for lack of a better word, of Trump about how much money he saved with these tariffs.
Well, it turns out when you look a little deeper, it's not that at all.
It caused a lot of problems.
And so now the federal government has to cough up money to solve the problems created by the federal government itself.
But, you know, there is one person there that is up on this issue.
And he has a suggestion, not a perfect solution for every problem, but a heck of a lot better than what they want to do is just spend more money.
And that is our friend Thomas Messie.
And he's talking about the Prime Act.
You know, he's in the farming business too.
I thought maybe the Prime Act is like a prime steak or something.
Maybe we'd get better stakes or something like that.
At least it would be up and down.
One week, the meat prices are skyrocketing and then they come down for a little bit, all that mischief because the market isn't there doing its supply and demand of the product.
It's more worried about the supply and demand of the monetary system, which plays a role in this.
And then they have to deal with regulations and particular tariffs now.
Very, very difficult for the farmer and everybody else.
But this whole idea that they should get a bailout, but they've been doing that for years and years, and they get by and they tinker with it.
And they've lost almost total confidence in the marketplace.
And that is here.
But too bad.
Thomas's bill is a good bill.
It's better than what the $12 billion wants to do.
But Thomas's bill would be definitely moving in a direction, emphasizing that if you have to have some dealing, more so in the state and the federal government, getting the federal government out at least.
And of course, Trump takes that position on education, I think, so far pretty well.
Who knows whether he'll cut spending or not, but this is, I think, the motivation on Thomas is to let things go more locally, get the federal government out.
And we were encouraged at the beginning of this administration by all these people who are going to be fired and all.
But some people have so-called been fired, but they just have been moved around because there's been no money cut.
The budget keeps going up.
Well, I think we've lost some of our allies with this administration, people that are supporting it, and we don't oppose it.
But they forget that the idea, the problem of too much government interference is not more government interference.
And that's the problem.
And I do have a summary of Thomas Massey, Representative Massey's bill later on that I'm going to put up here.
But Thomas Massey, the bill itself is not the solution to all of our agricultural problems.
That's understood.
It's not the one-stop solution.
However, what makes it so important is it is the direction that you need to go if you want to solve these problems.
It's a step in the right direction.
It's the old analogy.
If you're in a hole, stop digging.
The government's in a hole and it keeps digging.
But I wanted to just do a couple of other things.
First of all, this is nothing new.
If you go to that next clip, the farm aid is similar to what Trump offered during his first term when the U.S. and China were in a similar trade war and answers concerns voiced by Republican lawmakers.
The question is, maybe we shouldn't be in trade wars with China.
Maybe we should just trade with them.
And I think Trump understands that there's a problem.
Go to the beyond the commodities, go to the meatpacking industry.
Trump put this out on Truth Social, not go backwards, if you don't mind.
Put this out recently on Truth Social.
I asked the Department of Justice to immediately begin an investigation into the meatpacking companies who are driving up the price of beef through illicit collusion, price fixing, price manipulation, et cetera, et cetera, on and on and on.
He understands that there is a problem, but what he's trying to do is stick the federal government on it.
What Thomas Massey is offering is a different solution.
Now go to the next one.
Here is Thomas Massey on his beautiful bucolic house and ranch.
And he posted this a while ago.
I stand with American livestock farmers.
I sponsored a bill to bring back country of origin labels on beef.
And I have 50 co-sponsors in the House and Senate on my Prime Act, which would make it easier for families to buy healthy meat from local farms.
These are my Wengus cattle.
You can see his cows there.
Now let's look at the Prime Act.
There's a summary that I pulled straight off of the Congressional website.
If you can put that next one up and let's have a read.
It is a little bit small, I will admit that.
I'll try to just summarize it briefly.
The bill exempts from federal inspection requirements animals and meats that are slaughtered and prepared at custom animal slaughter facilities for distribution within the state.
Under current law, a custom slaughter exemption applies only if the meat is slaughtered exclusively for personal household guest or employee uses.
Specifically, it expands federal exemption to include slaughter of animals, preparation of carcasses that are slaughtered and prepared, and a custom facility in accordance with the laws of the state where the facility is located and prepared exclusively for distribution to household customers in the state or restaurants, hotels, boarding houses, grocery schools, or other establishments in the state that either prepare meals, et cetera, et cetera.
Cannot Regulate Innovation 00:12:02
Does not preempt any state law concerning the slaughter of animals, et cetera, et cetera, or the sale of meat or other products.
And this is a problem that they've had.
And they've gotten around it, Dr. Paul, in many ways.
We used to purchase from a farmer who slaughtered, who had a local custom slaughterer, and it had to be not for human consumption labeled, you know, to get around it.
But the point is, there's only a couple of these facilities in the United States, and it's hard to get them in there, and it's expensive, and it drives up the cost of beef.
The answer should be simple.
You know, think of the problem that exists about buying raw milk.
And you've had an interest in that.
And I can recall when that subject came up.
And, of course, my position had been said.
People have a right to buy stuff, you know.
And if there's a risk in it, you have to figure out who's going to help give you the information.
So this was something that they did, but it did not solve the problem because it's still difficult.
And I can remember at one rally, I was just going to mention it because I figure nobody's here.
This was in a countryside where you would expect people, oh, yeah, we drink our own raw milk.
So I mentioned it and didn't expect a response.
And the response was way out of proportion.
Another example of how the people can get way ahead, you know, like on the war issue and the Fed issue.
They get way ahead of the politicians.
And they did on raw milk.
But it seems like a shame that it's difficult just to move something along like that.
Oh, but there might be a problem someday and we are going to protect them.
Yeah, there might be a problem by not getting a flu shot.
So we're going to give them a shot for everything.
You see, even on NAB right now, they've said that you can't, in some places in this one state, you can't use a health reason for not giving these vaccines to babies.
Yeah.
It's horrible.
Well, you know, it really is.
They get it because it's like this audience that you talk about.
Well, I may not drink raw milk, but I should defend your right.
It's the same with speech.
I may not like what you say, but you sure have the right to say it.
And they get it.
Those people do get it.
And I think it's very important to do.
Now let's move on to the second one that we want to talk about.
And it's similar in a way.
It's using the federal government as a battering ram against every problem when the answer, of course, is to not do that.
Trump reads one rule executive order aimed at centralizing AI regulation.
He continues to argue that a single national set of rules, otherwise known as a one rule book governing the artificial intelligence industry is essential rather than a patchwork of state-by-state regulations, et cetera, et cetera.
So he wants to be the arbiter of the rules of AI himself.
Why can't they just use the rules of the marketplace?
You know, no fraud and no theft and no plunder.
Can't take money from one group and give it to somebody else.
And AI, I am no expert on that, but I'll tell you what, the sense I have is there's a lot of people lining up, you know, to get in on writing these regulations.
And I think our administration might have a few people that are involved in doing that.
So I think this is very dangerous.
I think it's more corporatism and satisfying certain people.
But the Liberal State President continues to argue that a single national set of rules, you know, that's exactly what the founders didn't want.
That's why they wanted to separate these problems and let the states deal with some of them.
But no, one rule, simplify it and make it clear-cut for some people who aren't making the biggest bucks off it.
The problem is, some people will recognize that there is an issue.
Yeah, there would be an issue if there's, you know, if they can do whatever they want, you know, deep fakes and all the sort of thing.
But the problem is when you pick the winners and losers, you could miss out on some innovation that may be there.
You know, just like with cures for cancer, a cures for Alzheimer's and other things.
You know, when you only have one group doing the research, there may be stuff out there or with COVID, right?
Nobody wanted to talk about ivermectin because that was outside of the one rule book.
Turns out they were right.
So that's the real problem.
And here's Trump himself.
Now he's talking about it.
If you put that next one up, he said there must be only one rule book if we're going to continue to lead in AI.
We're beating all the countries in this point of the race, but that won't last long.
If we're going to have 50 states, many of them bad actors involved in rules and the approval process, et cetera, et cetera.
You get the point.
But you're right, Dr. Paul.
And I think what you make is a critical point, that this isn't happening in a vacuum.
There are people lined up next to the president who are in the AI business and say, let us make the rules.
We'll make it all perfect for everyone.
Well, I was disappointed.
You know, I have mixed feelings about crypto.
I don't understand it.
And but I am a very strong supporter of it.
Most people don't realize.
Well, no, I think there a lot do, and they're very generous in giving me some credit because I really push hard in Washington to have competing currencies.
Why can't you decide how you want to pay your bills?
And you might want to use silver dollars or something like that.
So that is something that they didn't like.
And arguing for competing currencies opens up the door.
But the other thing they did early on, because I attended these conferences promoting the cryptocurrencies and I was trying to learn what was going on.
But they would have people there giving lectures and talks and conniving about how we best influence the regulators in Washington, D.C.
And they promoted it because business-wise, it gave the system more credibility.
So if the government's there writing the rules, that would be really good for what they're doing.
Well, the market's supposed to make those decisions, not the government getting involved and doing the regulations that certain factions have.
Well, they always have a regulation that's going to protect the businessman as well as the customer.
You can't do it.
You want the market to do that.
But early on, there was too much invitation.
And I think I hear now people were a little bit cautious about crypto because of the regulation.
This thing, this dream that it was going to be invisible, you know, and how many people have you read about and people that even libertarians have defended have been bothered by the IRS.
The IRS knows what's going on.
So I would like the old-fashioned way of letting the market determine what the currency is that you use.
Absolutely.
And we do have some good friends that are innovators in crypto who are trying to get away from that government hand that wants to go in there and control it.
Great, really good people.
Well, I'm going to close out if you think you're ready.
I'm going to make a big announcement, which is that I got a call over the weekend from one of our dearest friends and biggest supporters.
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He called and said, well, let's see how much your listeners and how much your participants in the Ron Paul Institute really support what you're doing.
Let's see if they'll put their money where their mouth is.
He said, I will offer $100,000.
If you can get that money matched by the 31st of December, it will free up my $100,000, whatever percentage of that you get maxed up to the maximum of $100,000.
I will match that and you will be able to continue.
Now, here it is: the RPI challenge.
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We are asking you, we don't do this very often, but this is very important.
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Let's show our wonderful donor that you are out there and you do support what we do and you do want us to continue.
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Very good.
You know, the real problem we have can be explained.
There's a cause of it.
So if you talk about you can't afford anything anymore, we'll have to find out what kind of a regulation they need to be more efficient.
They'll come up with these crazy schemes that they can do it by regulations or spending or subsidizing it.
And we started off the program with the $12 billion that the farmers are going to get because of problems the government created.
But it wasn't created in a vacuum because there was a time in the past.
I mean, they've been going on probably off and on to some degree since the depression.
The government creates these problems, but there's no talk.
And right now, I imagine the final vote on $12 billion for Farm Aid, there won't be that many.
I don't think it'll be a close vote because they can't vote against people at this time.
But they have no reservations or no thought or concern about what the Fed policy is, what's he going to do, and why do we have a Fed, why interest rates are rigged for special interest, and believing that's what there's strong evidence that that is what messes up our economy, our ups and downs, our booms and our busts.
And it has to do with the manipulation of the most important price in economics, and that is the price of money, the interest rate.
This is very important.
And yet now we have interest rates.
The closest thing you can get to on real interest rates is credit card interest.
And that could be over 20%.
And that's telling people that there's something wrong.
And yet, every day you wait and find out: is the Fed going to lower the interest rate for the big guys a quarter of a point?
It's a big deal.
So that is not really being dealt with.
And that's because systematically, you know, from the beginning of the Fed up until the Bretton Woods, then up until the Bratton Woods breaking down, all these things, that it was predictable that this would happen.
It would lead to a period of time where things don't work anymore because we don't have that unit of account to depend on and measure the value.
Then you mix it up with all the regulations and all the politics that go on and foreign policies that are ridiculous that we're supposed to protect everybody in the world and bring about peace because we're the peacemakers and they don't even talk about it hardly.
People Are Waking Up 00:00:35
But the people are starting to talk about it.
They're talking about the Fed and they're talking about too much war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
So I think the movement is in the direction and the people are waking up.
I just hope we can contribute something positive to talk about what are you going to put in place of the terribly mixed up system we have today.
And there is a replacement.
The founder suggested it in that having a desire and an understanding of what personal liberty is all about.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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