At a time of record food prices, when the price per bushel of commodities that benefit from taxpayer price supports ranges from 24% to 93% above their five year averages, Congress is set to pass a $ 300 billion (!!!) farm support bill.  As today's Wall Street Journal puts it, "This year, farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history."

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are of course supporting the bill, and plenty of Republicans are joining in.  It is an absolutely HUGE program of subsidies, and the "reforms" attached to it are a joke.  (Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, asked how many top-income farmers in Iowa would be excluded by the new income caps, replied, 'two or three".)

Also from the Journal, "If you wonder why urban Democrats would vote for this rural giveaway, the answer is that they have been bought off with $10 billion in extra funding for food stamps and nutrition welfare programs.  Someone should tell them that their constituents might not need this cash if the farm bills were not helping to keep food prices high."   Even the recently elected "blue dog" Democrats, supposedly fiscally conservative, are going to ignore the fact that this farm bill busts the budget caps by over $ 10 billion, because they too are being bought off - by $5.9 billion in handouts for their districts.  This whole bill is a great case study on the way Washington works.

President Bush has promised to veto the bill; however, there may very well be enough Republican support to join the Democrats in overriding the veto.  (And we wonder why, as another conversation here today points out, Congress' support is at an all time low).

And how about our Presidential candidates?  As the Journal reports,

"... John McCain says, 'I would veto that bill" and will vote against it in the Senate.  Strangely silent is Barack Obama.  A major theme of his campaign is to battle corporate special interests in Washington on behalf of the 'middle class'.  Here is one of his first tests, and it will be fascinating to see if he sides with a well-funded lobby over consumers and taxpayers."

MWL