Earlier this week, reports indicated that Republicans in Congress, now taking another stab at passage of another bloated farm bill, would attempt to eliminate an Obama-era change that had reined in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies paid to many of the wealthiest American farmers. Also now on the chopping block, the reports claim, are limits on subsidies paid to family members serving as nominal farm co-owners—such as spouses or kids.
When these caps were put in place, they were little more than baby steps in the right direction. They were the first of many needed agricultural reforms, nearly all of which involve Congress and the USDA giving away less of your money, writes Baylen Linnekin.
But elimination of these minor reforms would confirm almost all of what critics of both Washington lawmakers and farm subsidies have long contended: they are unnecessary, embarrassing, shambolic, shameless, ossified, counterproductive, abominable, and grotesque.
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