The American Enterprise Institute’s January edition of the Monthly Harvest newsletter included a Taxpayers for Common Sense staff-authored article on the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC).

Created during the Great Depression, the CCC has evolved from a tool to simply cut and track checks for farm bill programs to a source of nearly unrestrained power. By exercising what’s known as “Section 5 Charter Act Authority” Secretaries of Agriculture have increasingly used the CCC to increase spending, expand farm supports far from the farm gate, and at times directly undermine Congressional intent.