As kids head back to school, teachers are crossing their fingers hoping they won’t have to spend hours re-teaching factoids forgotten over summer break. When Congress returns from their six week hiatus on Sept 9, we too are praying they haven’t forgotten an important lesson from the past year—a crisis for farm bill lobbyists isn’t a crisis for farm country.

Going on three years now, apologists for massive federal spending on agriculture have been trying to pass a trillion dollar farm bill. From trying to stuff a backroom brokered bill through the Super Committee, to spinning tales of $8 milk, to underhanded bait and switch tactics (like jamming a subsidy-laden farm bill through the House of Representatives in under 24 hours), they’ve tried every trick in the book to pass a farm bill that squanders savings and creates new income entitlement programs.

Yet anybody who’s passed basic arithmetic would have to question why.

• During the 2012 drought–the worst drought since the 1950s–agriculture “suffered” with its second most profitable year (down just $5 billion from the 2011 record of $118 billion).

• Scare tactics, such as a “dairy cliff” causing milk prices to jump to $8 per gallon on New Year’s Day, were nothing but a hoax.

• And the farm bill’s “expiration” last September was pretty much meaningless. Farmers went 92 days between the 2008 bill’s expiration and passage of a one-year extension with nary a hitch in their step.

In fact, the agriculture sector is doing so well, it’s on pace to reap record profits this year. A field trip to farm country will provide evidence. Record farm household income – which already exceeds average non-farm U.S. household income by $7,000 or more – has led to the purchase of new land, machinery, buildings, and storage bins. And a few interviews with producers would teach Congress that they aren’t worried about their bottom lines knowing that the biggest taxpayer-subsidized tools used by farmers and ranchers—crop insurance and the non-insured crop disaster payments—continue on auto-pilot regardless of whether the President signs a new farm bill into law.

Instead, special interest calls to jam another farm bill through Congress are more about job security for K Street lobbyists and members of the Agriculture Committees.

Rushing a trillion dollar farm bill through amongst potential impending government shutdowns and debt ceiling limit fights would earn Congress an “F” on one of its first post-August recess tests. Farm bills passed by the House and Senate this year have actually worsened since they were first proposed during 2011 “Super Committee” debt reduction negotiations. Special interests have littered them with carve-outs for everything from popcorn and peanuts to seafood and sorghum, handouts for the mature corn ethanol industry, expanded crop insurance subsidies, and new income guarantee programs that cover small dips in revenue (but not deep losses caused by last year’s drought).

Instead, Congress must turn the page and start a new chapter. In the near-term,

• Decide which farm safety net policies worked last year and which didn’t rather than brewing a new alphabet soup of names for decades-old subsidy programs,

• Pass a short-term farm bill extension that eliminates the outdated and wasteful direct payment program and other subsidies that Congress has already smartly voted to eliminate (Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program, Repowering Assistance Program, Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE), dairy export and production price programs, etc.), and

• Eliminate permanent 1930s and 1940s farm bill law that has nothing to do with modern agriculture but is rather misused by the farm lobby as a sad excuse to pass new unnecessary subsidies at the eleventh hour without opportunity for open debate.

In the long-term, Congress must go back to the whiteboard and master assignments that incorporate private sector risk management options and drought mitigation strategies into a more cost-effective, accountable, transparent, and responsive farm safety net. Unlike retaining the status quo, these reforms will lead to real taxpayer savings and a more viable agricultural economy.