Bruce Gardner on Farm Bill on National Review Online:
Congressional Democrats came to power in November on a platform of fiscal responsibility. An important test of their seriousness comes this spring as Capitol Hill considers reauthorizing the farm bill. A series of new research papers overwhelmingly show that our 70-year experiment of government micromanaging the agriculture industry has failed and it is time for Congress to plow them under.
The programs grew out of the Depression, when agriculture was a threatened, yet fundamental, sector of our economy. Since then, taxpayers have spent over $1.2 trillion on this effort and now spend over $18 billion per year in supports and subsidies.
And yet, whether the goals have been to maintain farm numbers and make small-scale family farms profitable, ensure price and production support, or improve the stability of commodity markets, the federal farm program has badly missed the mark.
For starters, despite generous handouts, the number of American farms has plummeted from 6 million in the mid-1930s to 2 million today.
Meanwhile, when it comes to price and production support, subsidies often amount to money for nothing. Iowa State economist Bruce Babcock recently found that if the average $7 billion a year in subsidies for corn, wheat, and soybeans had been eliminated in 1998, production and prices of those three crops would have been within 1 percent of what they were.
GOP candidates for the presidency in aught-eight looking to distinguish themselves from the herd and build their conservative cred should come out strong for ending all farm subsidies within the next five years. These subsidies are expensive, anti-free trade, and end up benefiting corporations more than the mythical family farmer.
Oh, but you can't risk losing the vote from the farm states. Really? How many votes are we talking about anyway? Farmers continue to be a smaller and smaller segment of the overall population. And whatever votes you lost from farmers and their allies would be more than made up for by voters impressed by your having the courage of your convictions to say "no mas" to the farm lobby. It's time for one of the candidates to stand up and have their "Mister McDonald" moment. They would earn my respect, admiration, and just possibly my vote.
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