Planting crops, reaping subsidies
Evansville Courier & Press August 2, 2007

The Issue: Farm policy comes at time of record-high prices. Our View: It's time for president to stick to his principles.

In President Bush's first year in office, he issued a statement of agricultural principles articulating what he said would be the basis for his farm policy.

He wanted to move away from subsidies and direct payments to a system of savings accounts that would act as insurance for farm setbacks — and toward market-oriented solutions, emphasizing conservation and being fiscally responsible, "generous but affordable."

Bush caved to the politics of farm legislation, and in the end only the "generous" part survived. The Republican-drafted farm bill of 2002 not only called for more generous subsidies and annual "emergency" bailouts, but it also reversed the modest reforms of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, an initiative championed by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

Now it's the Democrats' turn, and the House-passed reauthorization, at $286 billion, is business as usual down on the farm, only more so. It increases many subsidies at a time of record-high farm prices.
The bulk of the benefits would go to largely well-to-do corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybean farmers heavily concentrated in the Midwest and South. About half the farm payments would go to only 20 congressional districts. The payments are still weighted to the wealthy, even though there's a theoretical limit on payments to farmers whose income is over $1 million a year.

The already well-protected sugar growers were insulated against cheaper Mexican imports at a 10-year cost to taxpayers of $1.4 billion. And the lawmakers opted to include in the farm program fruit and vegetable growers, the last sector that's similar to a free market.

The farm bill may be terrible policy and provoke an interminable battle with the World Trade Organization, but it was a legislative tour de force for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who survived a major Republican defection over a tax provision and rolledover reformers she had supported just five years ago.

There are worthy alternatives offered by respected farm-state lawmakers such as Lugar and Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., but they were no match for the prosperous agribusiness lobby. Lugar has said the farm bill passed "a severe blow to taxpayers, most farmers, rural communities, the environment and U.S. prospects to export products."

Let's hope fellow senators will listen to the farm-savvy Lugar.

The Senate may offer an opportunity, as well, to save Indiana's social services privatization program. As it is, the farm bill could scuttle the deal and cost Indiana as much as $125 million.

This newspaper was uncomfortable with the privatization of welfare applications, and has said so on a number of occasions, yet we believe that is a decision for the state, and not Congress, to make.

Rep. Brad Ellsworth offered an amendment in the House to spare the deal for Indiana, but it was defeated.

"I believe the changing of the rules in the middle of the game is unfair to the Hoosier taxpayers we serve," said Ellsworth. We agree.

Overall, the president has threatened to veto the farm bill. It might be a futile gesture at this late date — the old bill expires Sept. 30 — but it's still worth dusting off his 2001 statement of principles and this time stick to them.