Runaway Farm Subsidies and Diet Guideline Fights: Federal Food Policy Is a Mess
16th April 2016
Recently, a pair of controversial federal food issues has made the news. The unpredicted increase in USDA farm subsidies and continuing fallout from the new dietary guidelines have captured headlines. They’re worth focusing on together, as they represent some varied and truly awful federal food law and policy.
Remind me where in the Constitution the Federal government is granted power over ‘food policy’.
Earlier this week, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Tx.) blasted critics of farm subsidies, claiming we live in a “fantasyland” where such subsidies aren’t needed.
Conaway’s remarks come as news broke this week that Congress has woefully underestimated the cost of farm subsidies. The latest figures show taxpayers are on the hook for $13.9 billion this year, according to reports. A separate estimate shows congressional predictions fell more than a billion dollars short of actual predicted payment figures.
Are we running short of food? I don’t see any shortages, judging by the lack of lines for, say, bread at the grocery store — unlike the former Soviet Union and other places that had (and have) a government ‘food policy’.
When the most recent Farm Bill passed, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), then-chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, touted the law as “an opportunity to cut spending.” What’s happened since? Spending has only risen. Last year, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group predicted subsidies could reach $30 billion by 2018.
Democrats: Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with crop insurance. But taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay to insure farmers against risk any more than they should be on the hook for subsidizing NASCAR drivers’ auto insurance. “If crop insurance is an important element of farming,” I wrote in 2012, “then let farmers buy such insurance on the open market—without taxpayer support—and, if need be, pass the costs on to consumers.”
No, that would be sensible, and so is necessarily excluded from government policy.