Wednesday editorial: Veto the Farm Bill
To a considerable degree, the federal Farm Bill of 2007 — which, five months into 2008 has yet to be passed by Congress — is a welfare program for millionaires. President George W. Bush calls it wasteful and promises to veto it when it hits his desk.
He’s right, but it’s not an easy call. The $280 billion bill sets policy for both farm payments and nutrition programs for the next five years. The compromise about to emerge from Congress increases nutrition spending by $10 billion over current programs. That’s not much, spread over half a decade, but it’s badly needed.
More than 25 million Americans on food stamps are struggling to cope with rising grocery bills. School lunch programs and charity food pantries also are feeling the pinch. The bill would relieve some of these pressures. It would make it slightly easier to enroll for food stamps. Schoolchildren would get more fresh fruit and vegetables.
The nutrition program part of the bill is good; we only wish it went further. The problems lie with the rest of the bill.
The American system of farm subsidies is a triumph of politics over common sense. It supports some crops — such as corn, wheat and soybeans — while largely ignoring others. It often pays farmers without regard to economic need, even without regard to whether the recipient is a farmer.
“This is the black hole of agriculture. It doesn’t make sense, but farmers continue to get it,” says Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, himself no foe of farmers.
As a result, some residents of tony urban neighborhoods who never dirty their fingers get subsidy checks based on their ownership of farmland. For example, the government sends checks to 333 “farm owners” in Clayton alone, according to the database compiled by the Environmental Working Group from federal records.
This is welfare for the wealthy, pure and simple.
Even Mr. Bush, who surely has nothing against welfare for the wealthy, sees this as absurd. He proposed limiting subsidies to families with incomes under $200,000.
He also proposed reforming subsidies to better reflect the ups and downs of farm income, rather than the simple ownership of farmland. Farmers facing drought, or tumbling crop prices, would get more help, while prosperous farmers would get less.
Congress prefers today’s wasteful system. Under the bill headed for Congressional approval, couples with an annual income of $1.5 million still would receive checks from the taxpayers, as would individuals raking in $750,000 a year.
Congress may well override Mr. Bush’s veto or simply extend the current farm bill for another year. The losers would be the poor and schoolchildren, held hostage by greedy “farmers.”
It’s not too late for Congress to impose some reason on its farm subsidy program. The Farm Bill is an uneasy compromise between congressmen from farming districts and lawmakers backing nutrition programs. It’s time for urban and suburban lawmakers to flex their muscle; millionaires don’t need handouts from the taxpayers.
Did you all write this on a full stomach after a nice, safe, cheap meal? Meanwhile, you probably paid an arm and a leg for the fuel it took you to get to work. Would you like to be as dependent on foreign food as you are on foreign oil? I personally am no more eager to hold my plate out to Hugo Chavez for food than I am to hold my cup out to him for fuel. But, keep it up, and we will offshore our food supply just like we did our fuel supply. It’s easy to write such things when you’re not hungry.
It is not often that I agree with the editorial position of the Post. In this case, they are at least half right. The farm subsidies are welfare pure and simple. The taxpayers are paying extra taxes for the privilege of higher fuel and food prices. It is an outrage and illustrates how hard it is to end any spending program once a voting contingency starts feeding at the public trough.
However, the Post is incorrect in stating that the “nutrition” portion of the bill should be increased. This is also welfare and should be reduced or eliminated. It is not the government’s role to feed the population. All food stamps and other handouts have done is cause long term dependency and made the very problems they were designed to solve far worse.
Ms. Guterriez illustrates how people with their hands out can always convince themselves that they deserve their transfer payments. Without the farm subsidies we will still be eating the same meal except that it would be cheaper. There is no legitimate economic theory that can reach any other conclusion.
It is a shame for our nation that the editorial board and others can’t think with the historical clarity and logic of David H. The nutrition welfare programs have been hidden in the Department of Agriculture for decades as part of the overall effort to disperse and conceal socialist spending across the vast federal bureaucracy. Too bad that deception leaves the PD editorial board in its present quandry. By the way, urban and suburban millionaires don’t need their handouts from the taxpayers either, folks.
It makes good sense for President Bush to veto this bill, which is loaded with congressional pork.
Either give me a subsidy for my tomatoes in the back yard or veto it.
The ag bill is pure pork! The bill should be vetoed then every expenditure viewed item by item including the nutrition aspects.
When are the people in the beltway going to realize we can’t tax and spend our way into prosperity?
It would be nice if the three candidates for president were required to sit down and address to the american public their position on this bill.