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The Senate Agriculture Committee today released its version of the Farm Bill and it appears to fall far short of needed reforms. And that's putting it kindly. The Chairwoman's summary claims the bill will contribute $23 billion toward deficit reduction. Even if true, this is significantly less than $33 billion the President included in his budget and the $30 billion House Republicans agreed to in their budget.
In a sop to the reality that agricultural producers have experienced record revenue for the last few years, the bill eliminates a number of entitlements starting in 2013. It eliminates direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, and the Average Crop Revenue Election Program (a failed subsidy from the last farm bill).
The bill, however, does nothing to rein in the exploding costs of taxpayer subsidized crop insurance. In fact, instead of chipping away at our trillion dollar annual deficits with the savings from eliminating the commodity handouts, it plows them into a new agricultural entitlement covering "shallow loss" that will end up costing taxpayers billions.
