The dwindling power of the press...

Current farm policy and especially the non-existent reform efforts by Congress have been savaged by all sides of the mainstream media - not to mention several creeks. A typical example:

It goes against the grain for farm subsidies to be handed out to the rich. But that's precisely what the House version of the next farm bill does -- it continues big handouts to wealthy farmers and landowners. It's going to be up to the Senate to get it right when Congress resumes next month.

Under the current farm bill, which expires this year, subsidies to farmers are cut off if their yearly incomes are above $2.5 million. The $286 billion, five-year House bill lowers that limit to $1 million -- an improvement, but far higher than the $200,000 limit suggested by President Bush and the $250,000 cap contained in a "Fairness Amendment" that was defeated on the House floor. Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't support tougher reforms because she was trying to protect some first-term farm-state Democrats. [More]

It goes against the grain for farm subsidies to be handed out to the rich. But that's precisely what the House version of the next farm bill does -- it continues big handouts to wealthy farmers and landowners. It's going to be up to the Senate to get it right when Congress resumes next month.

Under the current farm bill, which expires this year, subsidies to farmers are cut off if their yearly incomes are above $2.5 million. The $286 billion, five-year House bill lowers that limit to $1 million -- an improvement, but far higher than the $200,000 limit suggested by President Bush and the $250,000 cap contained in a "Fairness Amendment" that was defeated on the House floor. Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't support tougher reforms because she was trying to protect some first-term farm-state Democrats. [More]

Gosh, golly - you'd think with all this editorial outrage Congresshumans would be scrambling to build a better farm policy. Well, citizen, you would be wrong. As we saw in the House, reform is the last thing on Senate leaders' minds.

There is no change in the big ticket item in this farm bill cycle: $26 billion in direct payments, a leftover from "freedom to farm" payment contracts begun in 1996 that will be made, regardless of crop prices, over the next 5 years. Chairman Harkin has repeatedly criticized direct payments as "hard to justify" when crop prices are high, as they are now, and farmers will be making good money (in some cases record money) in the marketplace.

But with this draft he formally endorses continuing those very payments at the same level. He (suddenly) indicated he would do this a few weeks ago, just after Speaker Pelosi's House farm bill did the same.

They're simply accepting the reality that this is what every major farm and commodity group wants. And that's probably the most important take-away from this farm bill cycle. [More]

Regardless of your position the sheer immobility of farm policy would seem to demonstrate some powerful lessons:

• There are more people than just farmers benefiting from those billions. The idea that a few hundred thousand voters who split their votes unpredictably can reliably raid the Treasury would be mildly believable if we were cunning financiers, but we're farmers, fer crying out loud! My theory is the farm lobby is so whackin' huge it has become the tail that wags the dog. Indeed, an interesting economic study could be made of the net proceeds to farmers after the effort of feeding these K street mouths is subtracted.
• If you need proof of the dwindling readership and clout of the print media, this is Exhibit A. Following this argument the slow motion train-wreck that is the Chicago Tribune is hardly a surprise.
• If change should miraculously come, it would be shattering to a number of institutions and arguably due to on-line campaigning for change. Not this blog, necessarily, but a much wider spread network of reform activists who have finally found a outlet.

And yet, despite all the frantic exchanges, my sense of industrial producer attitudes from conversations this month across the Corn Belt is mild disinterest. I think they have wisely realized staring at Washington for indications of the future will designate you as potential roadkill on the ethanol-fired expressway of farm evolution.

[Egad - another runaway metaphor!]