SAM DONALDSON is off the government dole. In 1995, the ABC pundit got lots of flak when it was revealed that he received nearly $100,000 over two years in federal wool and mohair subsidies for his New Mexico sheep ranch. Wool and mohair subsidies were ended briefly, then restored in the late 1990s, but Donaldson hasn't signed up. "I'm entitled to it," he says, "but I'm not going to take it." Other Washingtonians haven't been so shy. About 1,400 residents of the metro area pocketed $8.8 million in USDA handouts from 1996 to 2000, according to a database compiled by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Former Democratic Party chief Charles Manatt collected $172,000 over those years. Manatt, who worked his father's farm as a boy, owns land in Iowa, where he grows corn, oats, and soybeans. Mary Mel French, a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, drew $91,000 on her Arkansas rice farm from 1996 to 2000, when she was a State Department protocol officer.

Real-estate magnate Oliver Carr Jr. collected nearly $7,000 over five years from a program to encourage farmers to set aside land for conservation. The land is a 120-acre Eastern Shore preserve for waterfowl, says Carr. The manager of the preserve applied for the subsidy, he adds: "We camp there sometimes."

Hearst columnist Marianne Meansgot $15,000 over those five years fora South Dakota farm she inherited that her great-grandfather homesteaded. "We barely break even," she says.

Others getting checks include Attorney General John Ashcroft ($1,600 for land in Missouri), political media strategist David Doak ($800 for Missouri farmland), and former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, whose $3,500 conservation payment is tied to the million-dollar estate he and wife Sally Quinn own in St. Mary's County. In his memoirs, Bradlee wrote that he loves to ride a tractor around the property, clear hedgerows, and plant trees. Bradlee was unavailable to discuss the matter; said Quinn, "I don't know anything about this. He's the farmer."