Dave Barry

[rowyn]

This Dave Barry column from a few weeks ago is atypically political for him. But it sums up my feelings about "Farm Aid" rather nicely. >:)

Comments

You know....

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

...it never occured to me, but I don't recall as you saying you've read any of PJ O'rourke's stuff. He's a humorist for rolling stone, their voice of "rational conservatism" whatever that means. I don't think you'd agree with him 100%. However, there is one book I think you would really appreciate: Parliament of Whores. He does an equally bitter and incisive look at agricultural subsidies. He, too, notice the mohair :) Get it out from the library, it's a quick read. (As you might expect for magazine work, unlike regular political science, it is NOT a selling point to be dense to read :) )

One bit I'll tease you with from Parliament is where he explains that one of the staple issues in "crop insurance" schemes is that all farmers are entitled _each_ year to make as much profit as they did during the best year on record (I believe it was (strange coincidence with the war) 1914. Wow, that's some kind of attitude. not only do they want money in return for NOT growing things, they want to get as much for _not_ growing them as they _ever did in history after COLA adjustment_ for _growing_ them. (boggles).

I wish Americans weren't so sentimental about farms because of Country and Western. There's what, 100,000 people who make their income primarily from a "family farm" and for their sake, we do this ? yeesh.

Of course, my "screw the hinterland" attitude, bred of growing up in a small town, isn't really entirely clear headed and rational either (wry look)

Ok, so they are entitled to be paid not to farm

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to start out by assuming that farmers have a moral and legal right to be subsidized by the government. After all, our politicians seem to begin there anyway.

Based on that premise, there is a certain amount of money that we are doomed to spend on these deserving folks. Now let's look at how we can get the best value for our money.

The current policy for many crops is for the government to buy any excess production at inflated prices. This drives up prices and ensures that farmers will have a strong incentive to grow too much food in the future.

I have an alternative. Let's take some of the recent plans to pay people not to farm one step farther. Instead of paying farmers to keep a particular number of acres idle (which drives up prices in a different way), what if we just establish (perhaps based on last year's subsidies) how much money each farmer is entitled to and agree that we will write him a check for that amount plus inflation every year for the rest of his life. Under this program, no one cares whether he keeps farming or lies on a beach in Tahiti. He gets the money because he is entitled to it as payment for his vote.

The beauty of this is that we don't waste any more money than we do today. We don't distort the price of food, and we even end up with about the number of farms that we're supposed to have since the farmers who can't make a profit will just retire. The program will even phase itself out if we don't allow new farmers to get these benefits. After all, who knows who they voted for before they started farming.

Telnar