#TBT: Loeffler’s Family Took Millions in Farm Subsidies While She Railed Against Relief for Out-of-Work Georgians

The Democratic Party of Georgia is celebrating #ThrowbackThursday by reminding Georgians of some of Senator Kelly Loeffler’s most out-of-touch moments

ATLANTA — While unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler attacked unemployment aid as “government dependency” and claimed she was “not seeing a big need” to extend now-expired federal unemployment benefits in the middle of a recession, reporting showed that she and her family have taken “millions in subsidies” — including from federal CARES Act funds.

Loeffler’s family has taken “more than $3.2 million in federal benefits since 1995” through farm subsidies, including over $770,000 since 2018. This also includes payments from the CARES Act as well as relief from President Donald Trump’s reckless trade war that threatened Georgia farmers. Yet even as her family receives millions in federal benefits, Loeffler and her Senate Republican colleagues have still failed to pass needed coronavirus relief for millions of Americans.

Read more about Loeffler’s federal farm payouts while she attacks critical relief:

American Prospect: Ultra-Rich Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Family Has Taken In $3 Million in Farm Subsidies

• Today, Loeffler is worth roughly $500 million. Her husband founded a stock exchange (Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE) and remains its chairman and CEO; she has a majority stake in a WNBA franchise. They live in a 15,000-square-foot estate in Atlanta.

• Meanwhile, the Loeffler family farm continues to operate, and several of Loeffler’s family members continue to pull in significant sums of money from government agriculture subsidies.

• Five of her family members have received more than $3.2 million in federal benefits since 1995. A significant share of that, $770,242, has come since 2018, as a result of farm bailout funds that President Trump has offered to compensate for the trade war with China and the pandemic.

• The nature of the farm subsidy program itself hardly aligns with Loeffler’s election campaign promotion of herself as “more conservative than Attila the Hun.”

• Extended family members can take an on-paper share of the ownership in a farm and become eligible themselves for annual payments, as has apparently happened in the Loeffler family case.

• While she’s not obligated to personally bail out her family, her public policy posture of calling for reducing $600 a week payments to unemployed workers, so they can “get back to work and limit government dependency,” is a tough fit with the millions in government welfare flowing to her family members.

• Since 1995, Don [Loeffler] has received $1,284,673 in federal government funds for crop subsidies, and Lynda has received $214,746.

• The couple retired in 2015, according to this local newspaper announcement of their 50th wedding anniversary. Despite that, Don continued to receive subsidies through federal conservation programs in subsequent years, totaling close to $6,000.

• Molly Loeffler began to receive farm subsidies in 2008, after her marriage to Brian [Loeffler]. Her lifetime total is $671,142. A son, Collin Loeffler, also has received $16,454 in subsidies, starting in 2013. His age is undisclosed.

• Brian Loeffler and his wife applied for and received $744,968 in MFP payments in 2018 and 2019, according to EWG records. Collin Loeffler also received $11,089. In addition, the Loefflers received $17,560 in CFAP payments through June 30 of this year. Molly Loeffler’s receipt of $375,000 under MFP represents the maximum amount allowable in 2018 and 2019 for that program.

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