The last farm bill came out six years ago, and failed to reduce Washington’s heavy hand in picking winners and losers in the agriculture sector as promised. That does not surprise us – because that is what happens when you write a bill worth $900 billion behind closed doors, with scant regard for the realities of the industry, and a healthy dose of corporate welfare. And that’s what we found with the 2002 and 2008 farm bills as well. Do you detect a pattern?

Taxpayers for Common Sense is on the record saying that we do support a safety net for businesses involved in agriculture – if it is cost-efficient, transparent, responsive to need, and will hold all parties accountable for producing results. The country deserves a robust farm bill debate, and a more inclusive process with more seats at the table. With our national debt at $21 trillion, greater than GDP, we have to start making hard choices now, so that terrible choices are not forced on us later.

There will be plenty to read and make sense of in the next few days. We certainly expect to call out a lot of inefficiency and waste of taxpayer dollars. We’ll post the legislation and other analysis here as we go.