EDITORIAL: Farm Subsidies: McConnell Should Back Saner Bill

By The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Aug. 1–Kudos to U.S. Reps. Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth for casting a vote in favor of healthier food, family farms, a cleaner environment and sane fiscal and foreign policy.

Who could be against that?

The four Republicans in Kentucky’s House delegation.

Reps. Hal Rogers, Geoff Davis, Ron Lewis and Ed Whitfield were not part of a bipartisan coalition that last week backed changes that would have aligned federal farm policy with the interests of more Kentuckians. (Rogers, Davis and Lewis later cast a party line vote against the whole farm bill. Whitfield joined Democrats in voting for the final bill.)

The problems with current farm policy are plenty. Taxpayers are forced to pour billions into subsidies for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice, with no regard to the producers’ financial need. Two-thirds of the money goes to 10 percent of growers.

One result: Overproduction that drives down prices and puts small farmers around the world out of business. President Bush has threatened to veto the farm bill passed by the House because the subsidies violate trade agreements.

Farm policy is also damaging Americans’ health by subsidizing corn, which becomes the high-fructose corn syrup that sweetens an array of foods that are making us fat and sick. Corn is also used to fatten livestock in feed lots and factory farms.

Put together a healthful table of fresh veggies and fruits from a farmers market, with meat raised on local pastures, and none of it will have received any support from the federal government. But put together a spread of fattening, artery-clogging food, the kind that’s shortening the life span of today’s kids, and it will be heavily subsidized with your tax dollars.

Last week’s amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., would have barred subsidies to producers making an average of $250,000 or more annually and steered the savings into conservation; nutrition; specialty crops, such as vegetables and fruits; and rural development programs. It did this without a tax on foreign investment in the United States that helps pay for the subsidies in the bill that cleared the House.

While the Kentucky delegation split along party lines the amendment brought together green Democrats, Republican budget hawks and defenders of small farms from both parties on the House floor.

They couldn’t overcome internal House politics or a lobbying blitz by big agriculture interests. The House did incorporate some of their ideas into the farm bill, but that only made it even more bloated.

Now, there’s an opportunity in the Senate to trim the wasteful subsidies while shifting to more healthful priorities at a time when corn growers are already rolling in dough because of the demand for ethanol.

In the past, Sen. Mitch McConnell has spoken in favor of shifting farm spending away from industrial-size farms into programs that would do more for small farms and the environment.

As Senate minority leader, he should put those good ideas into action.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

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