In perhaps the least surprising news from last Friday, it turns out the trillion-dollar farm bills special interests were pushing to enact last year would have saved billions less than proponents claimed. Up to $10 billion less according to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). What a difference seven months makes.

Taxpayers dodged a bullet last year when Congress wisely rejected cramming a trillion-dollar farm bill onto the fiscal cliff package, instead extending most programs through the end of this September. Lawmakers from agriculture-heavy states had been selling their farm bill proposals as deficit reduction bills. Spend a trillion, save a few billion…But just as we predicted, the “savings” aren’t appearing.

In fact, while CBO projected in July 2012 that the Senate-passed farm bill would save $23 billion over the next ten years, as compared to business as usual, CBO’s most recent analysis anticipates a meager $13 billion in saving – $10 billion less. Similarly, the House Agriculture Committee-passed bill was originally estimated to save $35 billion but is now expected to reduce farm bill spending by only $26.6 billion over the next ten years.

This is just more evidence that Farm Bills are not deficit reduction bills. See our Fact Sheet: Cost of Recent Farm Bills for more details.