Buying the farm

Agriculture policy doesn’t get much notice when it comes to the economy, but consumers and taxpayers certainly feel the pinch of all the bad decisions coming out of Washington.

For example, the farm bill sounds like a great idea. Who doesn’t want to help hard-working farmers? But that bill hands out subsidies to wealthy businesses and farmers who don’t even actually farm. At least Republicans in the House stood up earlier this month and split the food stamp provisions from the farm bill, to give the welfare program more scrutiny. The food stamp program’s lack of oversight was highlighted last week in the New York Post, which reported that it’s common practice for that city’s welfare recipients to use their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards — the modern-day food stamps — to buy groceries which they then pack into giant barrels and crates to ship to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Post reported the practice is so common that hundreds of the barrels line the walls of supermarkets in the city’s Caribbean populated areas.

Then there’s the dreaded ethanol tax. A Wall Street Journal editorial noted that the tax adds another 10 cents per gallon to the cost of gas for consumers, purportedly in the name of combating climate change, using corn for gas instead of food (another one of those farmer subsidies). But it’s now being conceded by environmentalists — including Al Gore — that ethanol probably increases carbon emissions.

If Washington can’t address the obvious failures of its agriculture policy, then gridlock becomes America’s best friend, because our elected officials consistently break things they say they’re trying to fix.