The disgrace that was this year's farm bill

ARTICLE: "A harvest of disgrace: Congress at its worst," The Economist, 24 May 2008, p. 46.

McCain gets the kudos and Obama the jeers for this one: 20 percent of the recipients (virtually all big ag firms, by anyone's calculations) get 80 percent of the feed—a whopping $307 billion during a global food crisis.

"Shockingly," as the Economist puts it, some of the payments were tied to today's high prices.

For shame.

Comments

[Elmer Humes]

And as you have pointing out these ag subsidies enable our prosperous ag businesses to win out over the Gap farmers who need this trade initially to get started economically. Not only shame, this is stupid...it totally contradicts the primary objective of our foreign policy!