Maybe the worst farm bill ever

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

In President Bush's first year in office, he issued a statement of agricultural principles articulating what he said would be the basis for his farm policy.

He wanted to move away from subsidies and direct payments to a system of savings accounts that would act as insurance for farm setbacks, and toward market-oriented solutions, emphasizing conservation and being fiscally responsible, "generous but affordable." Bush caved to the politics of farm legislation, and in the end only the "generous" part survived. The Republican farm bill of 2002 not only called for more generous subsidies, it reversed the modest reforms of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act.

Now it's the Democrats' turn, and the House-passed reauthorization, at $286 billion, is business as usual down on the farm, only more so.

It increases many subsidies at a time of record high farm prices.

The bulk of the benefits would go to largely well-to-do corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybean farmers heavily concentrated in the Midwest and South. Something like half the farm payments would go to only 20 congressional districts. The payments are still weighted to the wealthy even though there's a theoretical limit on payments to farmers whose income is over $1 million a year.

Perhaps most depressing, lawmakers opted to include in the farm program fruit and vegetable growers, the last sector that's something like a free market. President Bush should veto the entire bill.