To me, it's their money...and if they want to give it to the government and trust it to spend the funds appropriately, well that's their business.
Well, that presumes that the government can be trusted to spend only what they collect. The problem is that government agencies, once up, are very difficult to put an end to. And their primary concern seems to be to pay themselves more and more and to expand more and more, and let the taxpayers make up the difference.
Maybe that isn’t the case with these deals. But I would prefer to have the associations collect the money and spend it, without involving the government.
The Agriculture Department certainly has a very poor record. They crush small family farms so they can favor the large factory farms that are big political donors. They run insane programs like ethanol in gasoline, which does nothing to save energy but wrecks small engines and starves people in the third world. Once something like the ethanol program goes into effect, it seems impossible to reverse, no matter who the voters elect into office.
Maybe this is different, but I still don’t trust it.