THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
The perverse logic of Washington is on display as the GOP tries to cut back anachronistic farm subsidies that cost billions, hamstring many farmers, enrich a few, idle acres and distort markets.
Good idea. But the solution proposed is an alternative program that will allegedly phase out over seven years but cost even more taxpayer dollars in the meantime.
Apologists claim that farmers need time to adapt to a free-market environment after dealing since the Great Depression with programs to prop up prices and protect those who grow selected commodities. Nonsense. The problem isn't farmers who can't adapt but a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that won't die.
Times have changed, and most farmers long ago learned to face the same forces that the rest of the country's businesses deal with. Those who produce most of the nation's fruits, vegetables and meats already function successfully in free markets without distress or undue hardship.
The subsidy programs cover only a few staple grain commodities and some additional crops such as peanuts and sugar. These programs have survived not because they benefit romanticized family farmers but because they benefit agribusiness. It in turn subsidizes political careers with healthy donations.
In short, farm programs are pork-barrel legislation that keeps getting enacted because it pays. Agribusiness gives campaign money to politicians who vote to subsidize agribusiness.
Who pays? Ultimately consumers who face higher prices at the checkout line for sugar, peanut butter and other subsidized commodities than would otherwise be the case. And taxpayers, of course.
The impulse behind reform was admirable. The present system has long needed to be eliminated. But the actual legislation dismantles the present system only to erect another that will dole out even more money.
According to Agriculture Department estimates, the existing program would cost $12 billion over the next seven years. The new one could cost as much as $35.5 billion over the same period. And anyone who bets that the new program will actually come to an end in 2002 is dreaming. Reform of the farm program is sorely needed, but what this Congress proposes isn't the answer. by CNB