Congress Shouldn’t Have to Pass the Farm Bill to Find out What’s in It

[EasyAce]

By Chris Edwards
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/congress-shouldnt-have-pass-farm-bill-find-out-whats-it

Congress is set to pass an appalling farm bill that increases subsidies rather than reforms them. A conference committee is finalizing details on the budget buster bill, which will spend about $900 billion over 10 years on farm subsidies and food stamps.

These farm payments would come on top of the $12 billion or so in subsidies President Trump is already handing out to farmers to offset the damage of his trade war.

Farm subsidies transfer income upwards, harm the economy and the environment, and are unfair to taxpayers footing the bill. They should be repealed. Like other businesses, farm businesses should provide their own safety nets by using market-based financial tools and saving during the good years. U.S. agriculture would thrive without subsidies, as it has in subsidy-free New Zealand.

This year’s farm bill has been exposed as a pork-fest by agriculture scholars at both conservative and liberal think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Heritage’s expert, Daren Bakst, is calling the bill a “nightmare” and a “disaster" . . .

. . . Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the farm lobbies have most members in their pockets, so there will be little opposition to passage. Congressional leaders are planning to pass a final bill before the end of the year and send it to President Trump, who will probably sign it . . .

[jmyrlefuller]

One of the biggest pieces of real reform this country could use is to break up the Agriculture Department. Put the food stamps in some other bureaucratic agency (maybe HHS for now) and the actual farm-related work into either Interior or Commerce.

I've noted before that there are a few Cabinet departments that could be eliminated or given wholesale, Homeland Security-style reorganizations. Considering how industrialized our food supply has become, SNAP/EBT has become so far removed from actual farming that it makes absolutely no sense to include it in the same department anymore (no more than it makes any sense for our science departments such as USGS, NIST and NOAA to be under Commerce).

[Fishrrman]

Take away the food stamps and the "Agriculture department" will shrivel like a punctured balloon...