Posted by
Dave on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:18:13 AM
In a callous disregard for individual liberty and free market capitalism, and a warm embrace of election-year pandering using money confiscated from the paychecks of working taxpayers, the House of Representatives and Senate respectively voted 318-106 and 81-15 to pass the "Food and Energy Security Act of 2007", a.k.a. the "farm bill". As is typical when anything is done by the government on a "bipartisan" basis, hold on to your wallet because this bill spends over $307 billion of your money over the next 5 years. Of course, that's just the
direct cost -- subsidizing agriculture and paying farmers not to grow crops serves to increase the price of food, so not only does the government get first crack at your paycheck, you'll pay more at the grocery store as well. Then there's the more obscure cost: the subsidies will possibly trigger a response by countries to whom the United States exports farm goods. Such a response could take the form of retaliatory tariffs or subsidies; either would raise barriers to US exports, thus reducing the market for those goods (and, of course, raising prices for consumers in the countries whose governments choose to retaliate).
How bad is the farm bill? While the rhetoric used in passing the bill extolled the virtue of the "family farmer", consider the following, courtesy of
Citizens Against Government Waste (emphases added)
- It provides little improvement to means testing or payment limits. Married couples with an adjusted gross income of $1.5 million will still receive subsidies. The payment limit level of $360,000 was not reduced.
- It continues to dole out $5.2 billion annually in direct payments to individuals (many of whom are no longer farming) without any regard to prices or income. These direct payments, 60 percent of which go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients, were created in 1996 and were supposed to phase out by 2002.
- It creates a new “permanent disaster fund” worth $3.8 billion - a disaster for taxpayers, most farmers, and the environment. This will encourage planting on disaster-prone land, plus most payments will go to the same producers already receiving the bulk of the direct payments.
- It increases the support price for sugar, reserves 85 percent of the U.S. market for domestic producers and creates a new sugar ethanol program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this new program will cost taxpayers $1.3 billion over ten years, although the real cost is likely to exceed $4 billion. The consumer costs of the sugar program will exceed $2 billion annually.
- It adds earmarks such as $5 million for grants to broadcasting systems inserted by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), $3 million for Delta Health Alliance Grants inserted by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), and $1 million for the National Sheep and Goat Industry Improvement Center inserted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
According to various news stories about the bill's passage, it also includes subsidies for thoroughbred race horse breeders. I love watching the Kentucky Derby as much as anyone, but do those horse owners really have a right to the money
I earn?
Joining the Democrats in the House in passing the legislation were 100 Republican Congressmen. In the Senate, only 13 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the bill (both Texas Senators voted for the bill). This is abhorrent behavior for the party that advertises itself as the party of "limited government" (at least the Democrats make no such claim).
If this vote holds, then President Bush's threatened veto will be overridden, and we'll be saddled with the cost. Worse, the various legislators will go back to their districts and trumpet their great bipartisan "success" in passing what is, of course, "much needed" legislation. They pass idiotic boondoggles, and we pay the tab. Instead of profiles in courage, we are the recipients of profiles in calamity.