Wonkette

The government likes to give farmers money. Lots and lots of money. And, even though the average household income for farmers is higher than for non-farmers, Congress would like to give them some of everyone’s tax dollars to help them out despite their record profits. In fact, because farmers are making so much money outside of government assistance, Congress had to come up with a whole new system to do continue paying them!

Currently, farmers can pick and choose from a menu of subsidies based on everything from what they grow or how much they want to stop growing “for the environment” and everything in between — but the big money is in grains, as opposed to fruits and veggies (not that our government is promoting us eating more veggies or anything). Unfortunately for farmers, prices for grains have been so high for so long that the rules Congress wrote in 2002 for farmers to qualify for payments might leave out a lot of farmers in the next few years because they’ll be too rich and making too much money. Naturally, Congress has a solution!

Congress is on the verge of passing a $10 billion package of new subsidies and disaster relief in the next ten years, including a brand-new program to pay every farmer $15 for every acre they have (whether or not they farm on it) and then, in addition to the per-acre fee, give them additional money if “crop revenues in their state fall short of the norm.” In regular-people-speak, that means even if a given farmer grew as much, if not more, than usual, if the other farmers in his state didn’t (or stopped farming) s/he’d get extra money.

Oh, but they’re going to pay for it by taxing corporations more. That’s good, right?

Another Year at the Federal Trough: Farm Subsidies for the Rich, Famous, and Elected Jumped Again in 2002 [Heritage Foundation]
Senate’s Farm Bill Includes $10 Billion in New Aid [Washington Post]