Feeding at the Federal Trough
Today’s biggest welfare queens are probably farmers -- once, in their glory days, the most self-sufficient of Americans.
When I make speeches about free markets at Farm Bureau conferences, farmers applaud enthusiastically. But despite their surface support for free markets, most of them operate in a market that’s very expensive for all of us, receiving $200 billion in direct handouts this decade, plus another $200 billion in artificial price supports (which force us all to pay more for food).
Farm supports are as destructive as the old welfare payments to poor people were. Just as addictive, too. Subsidies are supposed to help farmers recover from low prices caused by overproduction, but the subsidies lead farmers to plant more crops, creating more overproduction, which lowers prices, making farmers even more dependent on handouts.
The programs wreck the lives of farmers in poor countries because they can’t compete with subsidized American farmers (or with even more-subsidized European farmers). Hypocritical politicians blather constantly about helping the poor and demand more of your tax money for foreign aid. But they simultaneously give out farm subsidies, which rig the system so that all over the world poor farmers stay poor.
Why shovel all this money to American farmers?
Because we like farms. Farms are romantic. No one wants to lose the family farm. Of course, most handouts don’t go to family farms. They end up going to big farm corporations, because the big, established companies are most skilled at using the system. Fortune 500 firms like Westvaco, Chevron, John Hancock Life Insurance, Du Pont, and Caterpillar each get hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies.
Another reason farmers get these ridiculous handouts is that they’ve become remarkably proficient at panhandling. Every state has a politically aggressive farm lobby, and every politician wants to stay on its good side. Watching the 2000 election’s Iowa caucuses was nauseating. At Vice President Al Gore’s rallies, they played country music while Gore regaled crowds with farm stories. "Every summer," said Gore, who grew up in a fancy Washington hotel, "we went back down to the farm. I was in the 4-H club."
Even so-called shrink-the-government Republicans will make government bigger for farmers. The candidate the press called the most "conservative," Alan Keyes, said farm supports are absolutely necessary: "It’s a question of America’s moral decency."
Oh, please. Most American farmers do just fine -- better than most other Americans. Subsidies go to corn growers who earn more than $200,000 a year, even to "farmers" like my ABC colleague Sam Donaldson, who got thousands of dollars in wool and mohair payments because he and his wife raised sheep and goats on their New Mexico ranch. Donaldson calls the payments "a horrible mess" (he’s sold the livestock and no longer collects subsidies), but he compares them to the home mortgage deduction, saying, "As long as the law is on the books, it’s appropriate to take advantage of it." Rich people take extra advantage: From 1996 to 2000, David Rockefeller got $352,187; Ted Turner, $176,077; basketball star Scottie Pippen, $131,575.
Farmers argue, "We need subsidies -- because the food supply is too important to be left to the uncertainties of free market competition." But farmers who grow beans, pears, and apples receive no government subsidies, and they thrive. Free markets are best at producing ample supplies of everything. Notice any shortages of unsubsidized green beans, pears, and apples? Me neither.
Yes, some farmers have a tough time. Some will go broke and lose their farms. That’s sad. But it’s also sad when people at Woolworth’s or TWA lose their jobs. Letting businesses fail is vital for the creative destruction that allows the market to work. Those who fail move on to jobs where their skills are put to better use. In the long run, it makes life better for the majority.
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