Farm subsidies are a scandal
Charleston Daily Mail, October 29, 2007

IN the 1990s, Congress finally bit the bullet and reformed welfare. Congress turned it from a lifetime entitlement back into temporary assistance for needy families.

It is time Congress did the same with farm subsidies. And there is movement afoot to do just that.

The abuses of the Department of Agriculture are legendary. Sarah Cohen of the Washington Post reported in July that in a seven-year period from 1999 to 2005, the federal government distributed $1.1 billion to the estates or companies of deceased farmers.

But even if it were managed well, the farm subsidy program is crazy. It costs taxpayers too much money, it subsidizes some farmers but not others, and it discourages innovation.

Surprisingly, one of the people calling for a change is Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who called for a $4.5 billion cut, although the final version did not.

"We have to consider new ideas," Harkin said. "We should not cling to a system that channels ever larger commodity payments to a relatively few, with two-thirds of American farmers getting none at all."

Iowa is second only to Texas in subsidy payments.

An alternative bill would replace subsidies with a crop insurance program. While it is given little chance now of becoming law, taxpayers can always hope.

Sponsored by Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., that bill calls for an insurance program that would be open to all farmers and would pay benefits only when farmers lost money on their crops.

"We want to end out-of-date subsidies and provide a more equitable and less expensive safety net for all American agriculture," Lugar said.

The agriculture committees in both houses of Congress are filled with appointees from farm states. They have little incentive to rein in a program that has gotten too big and too abusive of taxpayers.

Lugar thinks the floor of the Senate might be a different matter. Here's hoping it is.