The $307 billion farm bill that rolled through Congress is a perfect example of the pattern. Farm net income is up 56 percent over the past two years, yet the farm bill plows subsidies into agribusinesses, thoroughbred breeders and the rest.
The growers of nearly every crop will get more money. Farmers in the top 1 percent of earners qualify for federal payments. Under the legislation, the government will buy sugar for roughly twice the world price and then resell it at an 80 percent loss. Parts of the bill that would have protected wetlands and wildlife habitat were deleted or shrunk.
David Brooks’s NYT column is the last one I would like to point at today. The quotation above explains the core of the problem, the farm bill, but that’s not the core of the article.
Brooks argues that by supporting this bill (although not casting a vote in favor or against it), Obama has betrayed his promises about ending the support to “special interests.” The author points out that this bill, largely aimed at farmers in Iowa, might serve as Obama’s tactics to insure his popularity in Iowa, despite all the negative outcomes associated with the legislature.
McCain, on the other hand, has voted against it, claiming “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.” And he’s right.
