Todays commentary talks about the new farm bill, stock full of subsidies, cronyism and bizarre provisions. Only 4 out of 16 of Michigans Congressional delegation (2 Rs and 2 Ds) stood against it - see how your representative voted. The farm bill pays 62 percent of the premiums for crop insurance costing billions annually. The program is administered through 18 private companies. According to The New York Times, Crop insurers scored a major victory from a provision in the bill that bars the Agriculture Department from renegotiating lesser payments to those companies over the … life of the bill. In previous years, the Agriculture Departments renegotiations with insurance companies have resulted in billions of dollars in savings for the government. While the Congressional Budget Office said the bill will reduce federal spending by $16.6 billion, the R Street Institute, a free market think tank with its headquarters in Washington, D.C., said only $8.6 billion of that comes from trimming farm subsidies. Comparably, the 2014 White House budget wanted $37.8 billion in net cuts to farm subsidies. So the GOP, which provided most of the votes on this bill, soon will be campaigning on fiscal prudence, but could not manage to cut less than the president. The bill is a 50 percent increase in spending over the 2008 law, with 80 percent going to spending that has nothing to do with farming. Meanwhile, the median farm household income is 25 percent higher than the national average and 75 percent of the subsidies in the bill go to the largest 10 percent of farm businesses. In practical terms, this means the rest of society is subsidizing wealthy agriculture companies. michigancapitolconfidential/19701
Posted on: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 18:22:55 +0000