In a time when lawmakers in Washington desperately need to be cutting back on the spending that has aggravated the economic crisis and led to our $15 trillion national debt, we read this disturbing, but accurate, headline: "Congress moves to create new farm subsidy."
The story, by The Associated Press, spelled out some of the troubling details of this new subsidy:
It would shower billions of dollars on farmers to protect them from decreases in their revenue. (Do you have a federally backed subsidy to protect you if the company you work for suffers losses?)
Current record-high crop prices could be used as the baseline to determine "average" revenue -- meaning even relatively small drops in crop prices to a more normal range in the future could trigger massive payments to farmers.
The new subsidy would come in the form of a so-called "free" insurance program. Of course, it wouldn't really be free, because U.S. taxpayers -- and not the farmers who use the insurance -- would have to fund it.
Adjusted for inflation, farm income is now at its highest level since 1974. In fact, net farm income by the end of this year is expected to exceed 2010's income by a stunning 31 percent.
Do you know many other sectors of the economy experiencing 31 percent income growth? Does that kind of growth suggest to you that Congress should be creating another agricultural subsidy?
Our nation has gone through a sometimes ugly debate in recent months and years about the fact that we have to reduce our annual deficits and our calamitous national debt.
But how can we even begin to move toward that goal when at the same time many in Washington want to create new subsidies -- in violation of both economic common sense and our Constitution?