The Farm State Pig-Out

WSJ Online ^ | May 2, 2002 | WSJ Editorial

[edsheppa]

That great rooting, snooting noise you hear in the distance, dear taxpayers, is the sound of election-year, farm-state politics rolling out of the U.S. Congress. We all know democracy isn't cheap, but this is ridiculous.

Senate and House conferees this week unveiled their final farm bill, a 10-year, $173.5 billion bucket of slop that has even Washington agog. By the time all the handouts and payoffs were complete, the well-fed conferees had agreed to increase agricultural spending by no less than 70%. This alone amounts to one of the greatest urban-to-rural wealth transfers in history, a sort of Farm Belt Great Society.

[edsheppa]

Sickening.

[cibco]

" Of $71 billion handed out to farmers over the past five years, two-thirds went to just 10% of the farms."

And there is the main problem. Ted Turner is the top #3rd or 4th recipient of subsidies. Something is very wrong here. The small farmer just gets screwed in the process and fat cats collect.

[Zack Nguyen]

This bill is a disgrace and a blatant violation of Republican principles, if such a thing could even be said to exist. I have been waiting for someone to point this out. The Republicans cannot ever say that they are for limited government. They destroyed what they fought so hard to gain not six years ago. I expect this from Bush - he never said he was for limited government, and never promised to fundamentally change the relationship of our government to its people. But the conservatives in the Congress and Senate? There is no excuse.

[Zack Nguyen]

bump

[biblewonk]

I'm sure glad I'm not paying for this.

[JoeGar]

"We did it with steel, we did it with lumber, and now we're turning to our allies and saying we're doing it again with farm," laments Representative John Boehner (R., Ohio), along with California Democrat Cal Dooley, a rare dissenter from the spending consensus.

Now that Congress has us all paying higher prices for steel products, wood products, and farm products, they are considering having taxpayers fund steelworker pensions and insurance coverage of terrorist attacks -- and the President is joining in on this gluttony!