Farm Bill: One Big Catfish

by Tony Traina

In addition to the new, costly “agricultural risk coverage,” “adverse market payment,” and “supplemental coverage option” programs in the Senate’s Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act (S. 954), there are a variety of provisions carved out for special interests of all crops:

There’s a provision requiring the study of the feasibility of making popcorn a “covered commodity,”.......Dairy farmers milked the Hill’s purse as well as any lobby, cementing a new marginal protection program and market stabilization program.....If farmers enroll in the program, they agree to cut supply whenever their margins fall too low for an extended period of time. So, farmers are guaranteed $4 margins on 80 percent of average milk production on the tax payer’s dime, while also promising to slow production anytime margins fall below this number, increasing prices for the consumer.

No wonder House Speaker John Boehner (R-O.H.) dubbed the program “soviet-style.” Price controls in addition to production limitations? Lenin would indeed be proud; the program costs the government a cool $302 million over 10 years……. So, while Senators continue to trumpet the bill as a bipartisan effort with real implications for deficit reduction, they’re all pretending the bill is something it just isn’t. Big agriculture continues to get their handout, masqueraded as legislation designed to cut food stamps, increase insurance, and increase taxpayers’ exposure to risk…..To Read More…..