Monday, June 24, 2013

Tell me again, why do we need farm subsidies?

The farm bills now before Congress… attest, if nothing else, to the inertia of politics. There is no “public interest” (a phrase often meaningless in Washington) in having government subsidize farmers. Food would be produced without subsidies.  Robert Samuelson, author and economics journalist
The continuing saga of the Farm Bill reauthorization might make one laugh if it weren’t so tragic. America is broke, and the politicians in Washington contrived another Frankenstein-like piece of legislation that effectuates a cynical merger of food-stamp and agricultural subsidies designed to amass enough votes to obfuscate the excesses of both.
The legislation that went down to defeat in the House last week, thanks to a stalwart band of fiscal conservatives, including House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI), was a product of shameless but routine logrolling.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/06/24/farm-bill-follies 

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