THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509150021
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
The Republican revolution is supposed to be dedicated to reducing government, but the zeal evaporates when it comes to entrenched GOP constituencies. Plans to eliminate bloated agricultural subsidies are underwhelming.
Majority leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, once likened the government props under so many crops to Moscow on the Mississippi, yet phasing them out looks like it is going to be slow work.
House Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is pushing a glacial phase-out plan that would still provide farmers with $43 billion in payments over the next five years. That's down from current levels but remains an immense expense to protect farmers from the rigors of a free market. Yet those who produce unsubsidized crops, including almost all fruits and vegetables, manage to prosper without relying on government programs.
As if to demonstrate that the need to pander to farm states is bipartisan, President Clinton says Roberts' meek reform proposal is too extreme. He wants to cut even less from the billions spent annually on farms subsidies.
An unlikely alliance of urban Democrats and free-market conservatives in the House will try to do more to eliminate these programs, but farm states have representation in the Senate disproportionate to their population and that may allow them to prevail.
At a time when government programs that serve people in need are being scaled back to reduce budget deficits, it is scandalous that prosperous farmers retain a favored place at the public trough.
Reporting by The Wall Street Journal on rice subsidies provides a look at the issue in microcosm. As presently structured, 40 percent of all revenues earned by rice farmers come from taxpayers. More than 10 percent of all farm subsidies - almost $1 billion a year - go to rice farmers. In big rice-growing counties, the average subsidized farmer reaps between $50,000 and $300,000 a year in government payments.
The whole absurd edifice of price supports, target prices, subsidies for growing or not growing crops is an anachronistic holdover from the years of depression and an homage to the idea of centralized planning. It distorts markets and enriches the undeserving with tax dollars wrung from the unwitting.
Armey was right; our tangled agricultural programs are as close as this country gets to socialism. If the Republican revolution isn't about dismantling this kind of government excess, what is it about? by CNB