Last week I told you the agriculture sector was becoming more and more like the Soviet economy. It’s true! And this is not the work of just one party, both Republicans and Democrats have made the problem worse by trying to pick winners and losers and protecting special interests.
We are in the midst of our campaign to raise $20,000 for our work reforming federal agriculture policies, and we need your support!
Let’s start at the beginning. We treat farming and ranching differently from other sectors of the economy. Washington is so deeply enmeshed in the agriculture sector that government policy, and special interests that feed on it, are too often what drive business decisions – not farmers, not consumers, not the public interest.
The best example of this is our system of Federal Crop Insurance. A better name for the program, which costs in excess of $8 billion per year, would be the Federal Cash Assurance Program, because that is how it works. While it does insure some farmers against risks out of their control, it goes way beyond that.
Some so-called “family farms” benefit from millions in subsidies every year through our crop insurance program, even if they experience no losses and turn a profit. Huge agribusinesses receive direct cash payments if their revenue dips in a given year. The policies create winners and losers, usually based on the political influence of their respective congressional delegation. And, like a weed, the programs continue to spread into new areas, with constantly expanding eligibility and payouts.
The one-size-fits-all insurance policies offered to farms and ranches are a cash cow for the insurance industry, which collects proceeds and commissions at little risk, thanks to you and me. Capitol Hill is awash in representatives from the crop insurance industry and the trade groups looking to maintain the status quo.
Unfortunately, it’s a familiar story in Washington. But unlike Big Oil or the Big Banks, agribusiness lobbyists sell themselves as working for mom and pop farms (think: American Gothic), which makes it easier for Congress to write whopper checks, year after year. Even if we are talking about multimillion-dollar operations that at times are better at farming the Treasury than farming the land.
We like nothing more than bursting this bubble. And we need your help!
Ryan Alexander
President, Taxpayers for Common Sense
President, Taxpayers for Common Sense
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