The Conservative Revolution

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial team wrote a great piece for yesterday’s paper. It points out some of the many disastrous policies that Congress is considering. Subsidies, mandates and other market distortions are leading to food riots around the world. Yet, politicians in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere continue to meddle in the food markets, causing economic pain and even increasing hunger. The farm bill is a good case study in how government planners cannot allocate resources as efficiently as the market. As Dick Armey reminds us, “The market is rational, but the government is dumb.” Here are some highlights from the Journal’s piece.

This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won’t stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins…

The White House and liberal reformers calculate that farm owners with clever accountants can have incomes of up to $2.5 million and still get a taxpayer handout…

And once again the big sugar plantation owners in Florida walk away with the sweetest deal: Big Sugar bagged an increase in price supports and a guarantee of 85% of the domestic sugar market at these guaranteed prices. So taxpayers are on the hook for buying surplus domestically produced sugar at 23 cents a pound and selling it for ethanol for closer to three cents a pound.