Change You Can't Believe In
May 22, 2008; Page A14

President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill yesterday, and a bipartisan throng in the House promptly voted to override. The Senate is expected to follow shortly. Every one of these Congressional worthies purports to be an advocate of "change."

Yet you couldn't write a piece of legislation that more thoroughly represents the Beltway status quo than this one. In every way imaginable, and even a few more, it repeats and compounds the spendthrift errors of previous farm bills.

Since the last farm bill in 2002, the price of cotton is up 105%, soybeans 164%, corn 169% and wheat 256%. Yet when Mr. Bush proposed the genuine change of limiting farm welfare to those earning less than $200,000 a year, he was laughed out of town. The bill purports to limit subsidies to those earning a mere $750,000, but loopholes and spousal qualifications make it closer to $2.5 million. As Barack Obama likes to say, it's time Washington worked for "the middle class," which apparently includes millionaire corn and sugar farmers.

Another purported change is the arrival of "fiscal discipline," in Nancy Pelosi's favorite phrase from the 2006 campaign. Yet it turns out this farm extravaganza may bust federal budget targets even more than we thought a week ago. That's because the new price supports – the guaranteed floor payments farmers receive for their crops – have been raised to match this year's record prices.

The USDA reports that if crop prices fall from these highs to their norm over the next five years, farm payments will surge. For example, if corn prices return to $3.25 a bushel from today's $6, farmers would get $10 billion a year in support payments. If bean prices fall to their norm, they'd get $4 billion. Thus, if farm prices stay high, consumers face higher grocery bills and farmers get rich. If farm prices fall, taxpayers kick in the difference and farmers still get rich.

Sugar producers also make out like Beltway bandits, receiving the difference between the world price of sugar, which is now $12 per pound, and the guaranteed price of about $21 per pound. That's a roughly 75% subsidy for already wealthy cane growers and a nice payoff for the $3 million they contribute to House candidates each year.

All of this is a status quo that both political parties can believe in. More than a few liberal Democrats are privately embarrassed by this corporate welfare spectacle. But they've been mollified by Speaker Pelosi, who spent the last week assuring her left that the bill also includes another $10.4 billion for food stamps and nutrition programs. This entitlement expansion comes only days after the Congressional Budget Office reported that paying the bills for existing entitlements could require tax rates to climb to 80% in the future. Yes we can!

House Republicans are equally as complicit, despite their claims of having found fiscal religion after 2006. About half of them voted to override a Republican President. GOP leaders refused to whip against the bill, and two of them – Roy Blunt of Missouri and Adam Putnam of Florida – even voted for it. These are the same House Republicans who last week unveiled their new slogan, "The Change You Deserve."

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who says he supported the bill though he wasn't around to vote for it. One of the Illinois Senator's major campaign themes is that he has no truck with corporate lobbyists, but the farm bill is the ultimate lobbyist triumph. Every special interest gets massaged. Just as Mr. Bush bent too far to GOP spending in his first term, Mr. Obama's farm bill support suggests he'd bow to the Pelosi Democrats on Capitol Hill.

To his credit, John McCain opposes the bill, and this week he gave a speech attacking it. Yet he's also missed an opportunity to make his opposition part of a larger case that he represents change from both parties in Washington. He could also turn the tables on Mr. Obama's claim that he better represents middle-class taxpayers. Failing that kind of campaign, the farm bill suggests that the only real change coming to Washington is more of what's in taxpayer

I have been anti-farm subsidies for many years. The conglomerates grow bigger and stronger, the small farmers are forced to sell the land that has been in their families for generations. The rest of America pays for the land for the conglomerates. How sad that is has once become a part of our spending packages.

Thank you for the article. Just out of curiousity, where did it come from? Page A14 is not a lot of help.

WSJ - today's Wall Street Journal editorial page. 5/22/08

Duh .. missed that in the title of your post. Thanks.

As usual, the politicians have added so much extra onto a bill, that it looks completely diffrent than a farm subsidy bill. In addition to the subsidies the bill will:

Boost nutrition programs, including food stamps and emergency domestic food aid by more than $10 billion over 10 years. It would expand a program to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren.


Increase subsidies for certain crops, including fruits and vegetables excluded from previous farm bills.


Extend dairy programs.


Increase loan rates for sugar producers.


Urge the government to buy surplus sugar and sell it to ethanol producers for use in a mixture with corn.


Cut a per-gallon ethanol tax credit for refiners from 51 cents to 45 cents. The credit supports the blending of fuel with the corn-based additive. More money would go to cellulosic ethanol, made from plant matter.


Require that meats and other fresh foods carry labels with their countries of origin.


Stop allowing farmers to collect subsidies for multiple farm businesses.


Reopen a major discrimination case against the Agriculture Department. Thousands of black farmers who missed a deadline would get a chance to file claims alleging that they were denied loans or other subsidies.


Pay farmers for weather-related farm losses from a new $3.8 billion disaster relief fund.

I think I read that the farmer subsidy part of the bill only amounted to about 1/3 of the total bill. I agree that it doesn't make sense for wealthy farmers to be getting subsidies. I am curious, though, what percentage of the total number of farmers receiving subsidies this would be. I live in a dairy farm area, and I remember the days when these farmers were dumping their milk because prices were so low. Believe me, the farmers in our area are for the most part just getting by.

If this bill was considered "important legislation," why weren't all of the Senators campaigning to be top dog there to vote por-or-con for it? I guess "important" is relative when there's delegates at stake......