Last updated on July 4, 2011
From an article in the Wall Street Journal:
“The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion — a sum far greater than the nation’s net farm income this year.
This year [the USDA] will give a record $20 billion in various crop ‘supports’ to the nation’s wealthiest farmers — with the richest 10 percent receiving over 70 percent of all the redistributive payouts. Free-market conservatives don’t dare touch the Department of Agriculture, given the senatorial clout of Midwest farm states. Don’t expect left-wing Democrats to object either. In a brilliantly conceived devil’s bargain, the Department of Agriculture gives welfare to the wealthy on the one hand, while on the other sending more than $70 billion to the lower income brackets in food stamps.”
Here is more from the same author.
More on the Political Economy of Agricultural Subsidies
Last updated on July 4, 2011
From an article in the Wall Street Journal:
“The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion — a sum far greater than the nation’s net farm income this year.
This year [the USDA] will give a record $20 billion in various crop ‘supports’ to the nation’s wealthiest farmers — with the richest 10 percent receiving over 70 percent of all the redistributive payouts. Free-market conservatives don’t dare touch the Department of Agriculture, given the senatorial clout of Midwest farm states. Don’t expect left-wing Democrats to object either. In a brilliantly conceived devil’s bargain, the Department of Agriculture gives welfare to the wealthy on the one hand, while on the other sending more than $70 billion to the lower income brackets in food stamps.”
Here is more from the same author.
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Published in Agriculture, Commentary, Crop Insurance, Economics, Food, Macro, Micro and Policy