New Farm Bill: Welfare in Disguise

 Since the Great Depression, lobbying by farmers has proved particularly lucrative but has threatened to detach agriculture from the goal of efficiently producing food for consumers. Today, farm policy consists of an array of subsidies, regulations, spending programs, and land-use restrictions that are widely blamed for the increased cost of food, environmental degradation, fiscal burdens, and the failure of global trade negotiations. 80% of the Farm Bill is for welfare programs.
Learn more at: http://www.aei.org/topic/farm-bill/

New farm bill: Welfare in disguise
By Christine Harbin, AFP Federal Policy Analyst
As featured in Politico.

Lawmakers frequently claim they want to rein in spending. But the Senate’s recent failure to make any meaningful cuts to the farm bill speaks loudly to the contrary. Notably, 16 Senate Republicans — the purported party of smaller government — voted in favor of it. Every time the farm bill comes up for reauthorization, pastoral politics seems to get in the way of campaign promises of fiscal responsibility. What’s worse, the “farm bill” label allows ever-larger spending on welfare programs to bloat the entire package.

Read more here.