Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas must be feeling pretty bummed – her proposed $1.5 billion in farm “aid” may be nixed by the White House after all.
Lincoln, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee who is gearing up for a tough re-election battle this fall, has been fighting for the funds since July when they were removed as a compromise deal from a small business stimulus bill. The Obama administration had promised to approve the package, which was designed to provide “disaster aid” to farmers who lost crops in 2009, by Aug. 31.
August has come and gone, and there’s no sign of the package. But before we get all sad for the poor farmers down the street whose crops were ruined, let’s examine this plan. America’s biggest, least sustainable farms — many of them in Blanche’s Arkansas — would benefit most from the plan, while smaller, more damaged farms would be left high and dry. Why? The funds would not be distributed based on losses, but on how much they received or should have received under a federal subsidy program based on farm size. As the New York Times explained last week, it’s an “unjustified” windfall, as farms with as little as five percent loss would receive an additional chunk of 90 percent of the subsidy in aid. Bigger, more profitable farms — the ones least damaged by rains — are far more likely to qualify. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the top 10 percent of wealthiest farmers would receive about two-thirds of the money, and about a quarter of the funds would (curiously) go to Arkansas farms.
Lincoln herself told the Arkansas News, “If you have a large farm, you had a large loss, which means you’re going to have a large assistance.” She lambasted critics of the plan, saying they just do not understand farms: “I think it’s just another example of how those folks truly, I don’t think, understand production agriculture and how important it is to our economy and how important it is to feeding the world.”
Well, “these folks” understand the major problem with the aid: It applies to all farms unilaterally rather than proportionally to the hardest-hit farms. Southern rice and cotton farmers, who faced damages after heavy rainfall last year, have pleaded for aid, even if their losses were minimal. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) considers the package “a six-figure windfall for hundreds of plantation-scale, highly subsidized rice and cotton farms across the South.” Even large corn, wheat, and soybean farms would benefit. EWG President Ken Cook wrote to the Office of Management and Budget earlier this week to urge the White House not to push the package, arguing that it should only give aid to farms with a 30 percent threshold of losses.
Payments and politics shouldn’t go hand in hand, especially in times of such economic distress. The administration should reject Lincoln’s plan. After all, an initiative that merely rewards Lincoln’s supporters is an extraordinary waste of taxpayer dollars. These funds should go towards supporting the farmers who need help the most.
Photo credit: takomabibelot via Flickr
