The Malfeasant Farm Bill

Bill Moyer’s had an infuriating show on PBS about the current debate on the Farm Bill Reauthorization

A case of good intentions used to obscure greed, the farm bill ostensibly helps to protect the agriculture industry from damaging circumstances. But it also hides widespread corruption by creating a mechanism for politicians to trade unneeded and undeserved subsidies for votes and campaign donations. This bipartisan scam brings together all politicians representing farm intensive communities to collude on the perpetuation of this abuse of public funds. The show points out that the commodity lobbyists are perhaps the best and most effective of their peers.

It seems to me that both parties posture that they want to see these give aways controlled but they do not ever seem to concentrate enough political will to make the changes. It takes true statesmanship and integrity to do the right thing. What complicates this for me is that an otherwise honorable and progressive legislator may also be one who believes that they rely on this pork to stay in office.

All this brings me back to campaign finance reform so that candidates can run for office without having to rely on the donations of those who benefit from government largess. This wouldn’t stop the abuse but it is one of the few reasonable proposals for slowing it down. It may also be far cheaper for the public to subsidize elections than to subsidize urban cowboys.