Blast from the past: Cut farm subsidies

LP NOTE: While we at Vox Verax usually disagree with the Heritage Foundation, this article from 2008 puts forward the many reasons why farm subsidies in the U.S. must be severely reduced. It is even more relevant today as corporate farm profits skyrocket and many investors with no contact with (or interest in) the land reap a Congress-created largess at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

While most agriculture subsidies should be eliminated — perhaps on a sliding scale over a period of five years — we still feel that some are absolutely necessary. These are:

1. Soil, water, land conservation projects. (They save money by limiting environmental damage.)
2. Incentives for energy conservation and clean energy. (They also save money in long term by reducing energy costs and increasing economic security by reducing dependence on foreign energy sources.)

The issue of farm subsidies crosses party lines. The alignment instead is according to a rural-urban dichotomy, with members of Congress whose districts represent agricultural interests supporting them and those who don't vowing to do away with them. Democrats and Republicans populate both sides. The irony is that self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives are often the ones quietly working in the background to maintain farm subsidies. Hypocrisy crosses party lines....)

Seven Reasons to Veto the Farm Bill 

Published on May 12, 2008 by Brian Riedl
The Heritage Foundation 

As crop prices soar, American farm incomes are achieving record highs. Since enactment of the last farm bill in 2002, key crop prices have grown as much as 281 percent, and total farm income has more than doubled. More and more farmers are now multimillionaires.
Common sense therefore suggests that lawmakers writing the 2008 farm bill should pare back the $25 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to farmers, as well as the policies contributing to rising food prices.... 

A Broken System 

The case against the current farm-subsidy system is a strong one. For example:

• Farm subsidies are intended to alleviate farmer poverty, but the majority of subsidies go to commercial farms, which report an average income of $200,000 and a net worth of nearly $2 million.

• Farm subsidies are supposedly needed to keep farmers afloat, yet 90 percent of all subsidies go to growers of just five crops (wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans, and rice). Farms producing the majority of farm products (including fruits, vegetables, beef, and poultry) survive without subsidies.

• Farm subsidies are intended to raise farmer incomes by making up for low crop prices. Instead, subsidies promote overproduction, lowering prices even further. Expensive programs to restrict plantings are then implemented to raise prices again. ethanol mandates raise prices further.

• Farm subsidies are intended to help struggling family farmers. Instead, they harm those farmers by excluding them from most subsidies; financing the consolidation of small, individually owned farms into business conglomerates; and raising land values to levels that prevent young people from entering farming.

• Farm subsidies allegedly are intended to be consumer- and taxpayer-friendly, but they cost Americans billions of dollars each year in higher taxes and higher food costs.

The farm bill does not address any of these shortcomings. Washington would continue to spend approximately $25 billion annually to subsidize a small, elite group of farmers through policies that do nothing to help the farm economy.

More here. Sincere thanks to Minnesota Central for being an outstanding conscience this issue.