IGX

A program that puts billions of dollars in the pockets of farmers whether or not they plant a crop may disappear with hardly a protest from farm groups and the politicians who look out for their interests.

The Senate is expected to begin debate this week on a five-year farm and food aid bill that would save $9.3 billion by ending direct payments to farmers and replacing them with subsidized insurance programs for when the weather turns bad or prices go south.

The details are still to be worked out. But there's rare agreement that fixed annual subsidies of $5 billion a year for farmers are no longer feasible in this age of tight budgets and when farmers in general are enjoying record prosperity.

About 80 percent of the bill's half-trillion-dollar cost over the next five years represents nutrition programs, primarily food stamps now going to some 46 million people. About $100 billion would be devoted to crop subsidies and other farm programs.

The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee last month approved a bill that would save $23 billion over the next decade by ending direct payments and consolidating other programs. The bill would strengthen the subsidized crop insurance program and create a program to compensate farmers for smaller, or "shallow," revenue losses, based on a five-year average, for acres actually planted.

Pinky wrote:This is still idiotic. First of all, the 80% spent on food stamps and other nutrition programs are 100% boondoggle. They are an insanely inefficient way to help the poor. They exist primarily to prop up farm prices.

Secondly, there's no reason for the taxpayer to subsidize farmers' insurance. Protecting them from low prices is an especially bad idea. Like nearly everything else the Department of Agriculture does, this program exists only to buy farmers' votes.

For years, one of my basic rules of voting has been to never vote for any politician who supports any farm bill. Without exception, everyone in Congress who supports ag bills is a worthless whore. (Yes, that is nearly all of them.) My rule still applies to this bill.