With Election Day just six short weeks away, at-risk Republicans and hopeful Democrats finally found a cause worthy of bipartisan  agreement—using this summer’s record heat and record rains and anything in between as an excuse to heap enormous piles of new handouts on politically important farmers.

In just three months, the price tag for this political payoff jumped to $6.5 billion. In June, when the price tag was a mere $4 billion, the President already opposed the giveaways. First, they are excessive, seeing that farmer’s stand to bring in record prices with this year’s harvest. Second, the proposed package is little more than bonus checks for the privileged class of big business farmers who already receive most of the $20 billion a year in government handouts. Even worse, farmers who weren’t even affected by a disaster can qualify for payments.

After spending the August recess reading the political tea leaves, farm state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle returned clamoring for emergency aid. Now, as Congress prepares to adjourn at the end of the week to hit the campaign trail, House Democrats are trying to use a parliamentary maneuver that would force the Republican leadership to allow debate and a vote this week. It’s hard to say exactly what the emergency is, other than a political one.

Consider for a minute that despite a token nod at livestock and specialty crop producers—who currently receive little or no federal subsidies—in the bill’s recent iteration, many of the payments will only go to farmers who already receive federal handouts. For this agricultural aristocracy, the proposed “relief” is just another pile of cash on top of the enormous pile they’ve already received. Much of the payments won’t end up in the hands of needy farmers at all.

As a result, the same concentration of payments that plagues the current system will be reinforced, leaving the largest piece of the pie in the hands of a small number of the biggest, wealthiest producers. In 2004, the richest one-tenth of farmers squirreled away nearly two-thirds of the federal largesse. While the biggest farmers were cashing million dollar checks, the little guy walked away with peanuts.

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of this latest beg-fest is that it’s one in a string of similar demands stretching back for years. In 2002, the current system of subsidies and support programs was sold on the basis that it would eliminate the need for such emergency payments, yet taxpayers have found themselves taking it on the chin twice. First to pay for a broken system, and then to slap on annual band-aid measures that fail to treat the symptoms.

It’s time for the agriculture sector—and its Congressional enablers—to give up their reliance on public dollars and look to the market place for relief. To encourage this, Congress needs to stop going back to the public coffer and start reforming our agriculture policies to ensure tax dollars aren’t being wasted. Until that happens, taxpayers will remain Congress’s default sacrificial lamb.

For more information, contact Steve Ellis at (202)-546-8500 ext. 126 or email