The Old Hay Pay Wagon
The Washington Post has an editorial today that excoriates the pending farm bill now winding its way through Congress. The Post has been running a long, intermittent series on the absurdities of farm subsidies, of course. But the bill now pending ignores all that and heaps on lots and lots of gravy for farmers who, frankly, don't need it.
Under the pending farm bill, the U.S. sugar industry would get a 10-year, $1 billion program to prop up sugar prices by requiring the Agriculture Department to buy up excess production and resell it to ethanol producers at a deep discount. The idea is to protect American growers from Mexican competition after the North American Free Trade Agreement is fully phased in. The effect is to raise prices for every food that contains sugar. This illogical and wasteful plan passed the House thanks in part to $1.5 million in widely distributed campaign contributions from nine sugar farm or refinery groups, according to a Nov. 3 story in The Post by Mr. Morgan.
As Mr. Morgan showed in a Sept. 28 article, a "direct payment" program for corn continues to shovel millions of dollars to farmers even as they reap the benefits of high crop and land prices — which are in turn made possible by a separate federal program to subsidize corn-based ethanol. Mr. Morgan met an Iowa corn farmer who is wealthy enough to have pledged a $1.75 million donation to his alma mater, but, together with his two brothers, still receives $45,000 a year from Washington.
How nice that Congress is glad handing our tax money to millionaires. At a time of record prices for crops, the utter absurdity of subsidizing farmers is particularly galling. That big money is flowing to the politicians to ensure that even bigger money flows to the farmers just makes it worse. This bill isn't a bailout, it's a handout.
And they're handing out our money.
By PJens, Monday, 10 December , 2007 @ 4:10 pm
I am a farmer in Wisconsin. I can understand both sides of governement subsidies to agricultural producers. This year, for the first time, I did not make the trip to the FSA collect my governemnt farm payment. It was just not worth the hassel.