Farm Livin' Is The Life For Me!

The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal invokes Green Acres, ridiculing all the Manhattan residents who qualify for a nice Federal check. This is required, Governor Romney informs us in a Republican debate "to protect the food supply." Free markets are so prone to shortages, anything important should be financed by the government. (Sadly, Mayor Giuliani assented).

Why can't Scottie Pippen, David Letterman, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, Leonard Lauder of the cosmetics firm, Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram fortune, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen make their farm income the old fashioned way? Have Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp throw them a benefit concert.

One of my illustrious Senators gets some press:

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar assails President Bush's threatened veto of the farm bill as "immoral." What he doesn't say is that his potato farming brothers, including Congressman John Salazar, received $43,104 in farm subsidies from 2003 to 2005, and they will get more if the bill is passed.

So what is it about farm bills that turns Republicans into socialists and Democrats into defenders of welfare for the rich? One answer was offered by Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group: "Democrats are so reliant on their ability to compete with Republicans for the farm vote that many are reluctant to push any income limits at all. It's very hypocritical."

Democrats will get a chance to prove him wrong when the $290 billion farm bill comes to the Senate floor, perhaps this week. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar wants a vote on her amendment to stop payments for farm households with incomes above $750,000. This is a far cry from the $200,000 cap proposed by Mr. Bush, whom Democrats decry as a "protector of the rich." Yet Ms. Klobuchar's superrich income cap is still opposed by many Senators in both parties. Meanwhile, in the House, the farm bill passed with a $2 million income cap. It seems only yesterday that Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would end policies that benefit the rich over the middle class.

Farm bills come around every five years, so this is the best chance in years for reforms that reserve farm payments for the truly needy. That this is proving so hard to accomplish tells us a lot about how this Congress puts politics over principle. About 65 cents of every farm payment dollar goes to the wealthiest 10% of farmers. Where is that Democratic devotion to class warfare when we really need it?

Amen to that.

Posted by jk at December 11, 2007 10:50 AM