OUR OPINIONS: Grown Fat On The Dole
Farm subsidy bill, a bloated boon to wealthiest growers, should be plowed under by veto pen
Published May 7, 2008
When President Bush aligns himself with San Francisco activists and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents the San Francisco Bay area, aligns herself with rich farmers on the public dole, the world has indeed gone topsy-turvy.
The solution? Right the course. The president should carry out his threat to veto a nearly $300 billion farm bill that transfers the earnings of maids, factory workers and other taxpayers to prosperous or even rich farmers. (The top 10 percent of farmers collected 72 percent of all subsidies between 1995 and 2003, according to the Environmental Working Group. About 90 percent of the subsidies are paid to farmers who grow five crops: soybeans, rice, cotton, wheat and corn.)
Bush calls the proposal a "massive, bloated farm bill that would do little to solve the problem" of high food prices. Among other changes, he proposes ending subsidy payments to farmers with adjusted gross income from nonfarm sources above $200,000, which would push the wealthiest farmers out of the subsidy program.
Pelosi, on the other hand, supports raising that level to $2 million. Congressional negotiators set it at $500,000, but a farmer could earn $950,000 from farm operations before facing a reduction in subsidies. Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which opposes large-scale corporate farming, estimates that a married farm couple could earn $2.9 million before getting kicked off the federal dole.
Bush has been warned by the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), that vetoing this porker in an election year would be "political suicide" because it contains money for everybody. Tucked in the bill are a $10.4 billion increase for food stamps and nutrition, added to attract support from urban congressmen, as well as subsidies totaling up to $1.01 a gallon for ethanol made from cellulosic material including wood chips, switch grass, citrus waste and the like. It also funds conservation programs, Chesapeake Bay cleanup and organic farming research sought by California farmers. Owners of thoroughbred racehorses get a write-off valued at $93 million in the bill, added at the behest of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
These are bipartisan, equal-opportunity giveaways of public money. In an election year, worries about the deficit are conveniently put on hold.
The shame of this year's largesse is that farm income is at record levels and food-price inflation increased by 4 percent in 2007, highest since 1990. The projected increase this year is another 4 percent.
The time and need are now to wean farmers, especially the wealthy, from subsidies. Taxpayers fork over about $5 billion per year in direct payments that were intended, when established in 1996, to wean growers from the old price-guarantee programs. They were intended to phase out over time. They haven't.
For a president with just a few more months in office, vetoing the farm bill won't be political suicide. It would be common sense and the right thing to do.
