Phony Farmers Exposed
A dead man farming? That was the unsettling image that came to mind last November, when a Miami television station analyzed records of federal farm subsidies paid to South Florida residents. By cross-referencing payments against death notices, the reporters found that at least 234 people listed as deceased were still getting checks from Washington; some had been dead for as long as eight years. All told, about $9.5 million in farm subsidies went to folks who were pushing up plants, not harvesting them.
And then there are the rich phonies taking handouts. A government audit found that of the 1.8 million so-called farmers who received federal funds between 2003 and 2006, 2,702 of them had adjusted gross incomes of more than $2.5 million. The list included the co-owner of an unnamed sports team who hauled in $200,000 a year, as well as wealthy residents of the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong—people who are generally not eligible for U.S. government handouts. In all, these millionaires have enriched themselves to the tune of $49 million in taxpayer money.
Why in the world is Washington sending subsidy checks to millionaires, foreign residents, and corpses? The answer can be found in one of the most maddening federal programs around: farm subsidies. Every year, the government spends more than $13 billion on subsidies to farmers and agribusinesses—much of it in cash payments that keep coming regardless of economic and crop conditions. A worthy program conceived during the Great Depression to help struggling American farmers has become a slush fund for corporations—and it remains one of Washington’s biggest sacred cows.
“Farm subsidies are America’s largest corporate welfare program,” says the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl. “They survive as a case study in special interest politics.”
The agricultural industry, with 1,200 registered lobbyists in Washington, spends about $133 million a year to make sure the money keeps flowing. Defenders of farm supports like to hold up the classic image of a hardworking American farmer in his overalls. But small farmers aren’t getting much more than the crust of this pie. Seventy-five percent of all farm subsidies go to just 10 percent of recipients, according to the watch-dog Environmental Working Group.
“So rather than this idea that we are helping family farms or helping the little guy weather the storm, we are subsidizing some of the wealthiest farms in the country,” says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense. The top recipients of farm subsidies don’t have names like Jones or Smith but rather Riceland Foods, Inc., Harvest States Cooperative, and the South Dakota Building Authority.
Oh, and don’t forget the people who are paid not to farm. In 1996, Congress approved payments for farmers regardless of whether they planted, as long as they didn’t develop their land. The payments were supposed to be temporary help and then phased out. But—surprise, surprise!—they kept on coming. And now anyone who owns a patch of land that was declared a farm back then is entitled to an annual government check. Between 2000 and 2006, the government sent $1.3 billion to people who don’t farm, according to the Washington Post.
How does a crazy program like this survive? As usual in Washington: lobbyists. When Congress passed its last big farm bill, in 2008, calls for slashing subsidies came from left and right. But when Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin, cosponsored an amendment to actually limit the payments, the response “was a siege on Capitol Hill, with the lobbyists pounding doors and twisting arms.”
In the end, the lobbyists won. Congress passed a five-year, $300 billion plan that increased subsidy payments. Couples with adjusted gross incomes of up to $1.5 million from farming are still able to qualify for help under the new rules.
It’s not just lobbyists who keep this racket going; our lawmakers are guilty too. Take Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, who came to Congress in 1986 vowing to resign if the federal deficit wasn’t brought under control. He kept his promise but seven months later ran again. Now, more than 20 years since he first took office, the deficit has grown by a factor of seven, and Conrad is still on the job, winning big farm subsidies for his state. Although nearly half of North Dakota’s 647,000 residents live in urban areas, over the past decade, it has received an annual average of $715 million in agricultural subsidies—$22,000 a year for every farm in the state. As an author of the 2008 farm bill, Conrad included a new $3.8 billion emergency fund to bail out farmers hit by natural disasters like droughts and floods. Since the bill passed, North Dakotans have received $23 million from the fund; only Texas has gotten more.
Other members of Congress have profited from subsidies directly. Arkansas Democratic senator Blanche Lincoln’s family received more than $700,000 over a ten-year period, and Republican Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, a millionaire deficit hawk, reaped $238,000 in federal dollars from 1995 to 2006.
President Obama has proposed new limits on farm subsidies. Congress has basically ignored him. The president should put his foot down. It’s time for representatives from states gorging on federal bucks to show political courage. The sacrifice should be shared, to be sure. Farm states should join with states that benefit from unneeded Pentagon programs to divvy up the pain of cuts. Otherwise, we’ll never get control of our budget. And we’ll still be sending checks to dead farmers and Hong Kong millionaires.
Do More
Investigate. See who gets farm subsidies at the Environmental Working Group’s state-by-state database farm.ewg.org/farm
Speak up. Contact the House and Senate agriculture committee chairs, Representative Collin Peterson (202-225-2165) and Senator Blanche Lincoln (202-224-4843), and tell them to stop the wasteful spending.
Help out real family farmers. For 25 years, Farm Aid (farmaid.org) has provided funds and services directly to family farmers in crisis.
