Union Leader: Big Pig: The Farm Bill Stinks

Union Leader
Published November 7, 2007

IF YOU SMELL bacon in the air this week, don't worry. It's just Washington feeding us another pork-laden farm bill. Up for debate in the U.S. Senate is the 2007 farm bill. It would, among other things, distribute $42 billion in subsidies to businesses that farm five crops -- corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat. And that's just for starters. The total price of the bill: $288 billion. A single farm in Louisiana is slated to receive $3.3 million in payments if this bill passes, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group. Another in California will get $3.2 million. The big myth about farm subsidies is that they help small farmers. They don't. They go mostly to large corporate farms, and even to wealthy city folk who own farm land but don't farm it. Most small farmers don't get to gnaw on any of this pork. We expect New Hampshire's senators to vote against this waste, as all sensible lawmakers should. If it passes, President Bush should veto it. It is indefensible, and no one who claims to be fiscally conservative should be caught supporting it.