Brian Riedl
2008-05-14 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

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. Instead, House and Senate conferees have inexplicably completed a farm bill conference report (HR2419) that increases farm subsidies even more.

President George W. Bush and reform-minded lawmakers should flat-out reject this farm bill that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year, distort food prices and subsidize millionaires. They should demand a farm bill that understands that farming’s chief economic challenge is not persistent poverty, but normal yearly income fluctuations. And they should demand a farm bill that allows farmers to base their crop-planting decisions on market demand, not government subsidies and regulations. ...

heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/bg2134.cfm