About a month ago, Andrew Samwick had this post, questioning the wisdom of U.S. farm-subsidy spending. (I noted it here.) Today's New York Times has this story:
President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday...
Mr. Bush would set a firm overall limit of $250,000 on subsidies that can now exceed $1 million in some cases...
Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy group, said the proposal would reduce payments to big agribusiness operations. The savings, he said, would ease pressure on Congress to cut conservation programs financed in the same legislation.
"This proposal is a very big deal," Mr. Cook said. "I am stunned and impressed. The Bush administration is opening the door to reform on the most contested issue in agriculture policy today. Taxpayers will no longer have to subsidize every bushel of grain or bale of cotton. They will no longer have to subsidize the demise of the family farm."...
In theory, the maximum payment to a farmer, through multiple entities, is now $360,000 a year. But Keith J. Collins, chief economist at the Agriculture Department, said that growers had found many legal ways to get around the limit and that some growers received several times that amount. One type of aid, which involves marketing assistance loans, is not subject to any limit, he said.
In setting a firm overall limit of $250,000, the president's plan would tighten requirements for the recipients of such payments to be "actively engaged" in agriculture, and it would generally prevent farmers from claiming additional payments through multiple entities.
It won't, of course, be easy.
The new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, and more than 100 farm groups are gearing up to fight the White House proposal.
But maybe this is all a hopeful sign.
The administration's willingness to push the proposal, despite such protests, suggests how tight the new budget will be.
Vox Baby ahead of the curve, as usual.