Praise and Criticism, Part II

Individuals and groups across the world continue to weigh in on the effects of President Bush’s proposal to cut farm subsidies.

Domestically, the responses remain highly diverse.

Writing in Newsday, conservative columnist James P. Pinkerton, says a 10-year history of farm programs should serve as a cautionary tale about “open-ended entitlement programs” such as farm subsidies.

“In 1996, the Congressional Republicans, espousing a libertarian line, persuaded Clinton to sign the Freedom to Farm Act, targeting payments to farmers. Then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took credit for ‘ending the subsidies after 60 years.’ It was a great idea; if the government is going to shrink, surely money to corporate farms should be shrunk first.

”But a funny thing happened on the way to small government. In the first year after the farm law passed, Department of Agriculture spending dipped a bit, from $53.12 billion to $49.55 billion. But then traditional farm-state boondoggle politics kicked back in. By 2001, at the end of Clinton's presidency, USDA spending had jumped to $74.8 billion. And at the end of George W. Bush's first term, it jumped even higher, to $93 billion.”

Meanwhile, the editorial board of the Christian Science Monitor takes consolation in the fact that subsidies are taking “a significant, and welcome, cut.”

“By reducing subsidies, the global marketplace can better decide crop values. That the US intends to limit farmers' dependence on federal dollars should also help advance global trade talks, where farm subsidies remain a stumbling block. Lower government payments will help give an agricultural leg up to third world farmers burdened by cheap American exports, thus fighting poverty. And the move should encourage other countries to reduce their own agricultural subsidies.”

Sharing those sentiments is the Center for Global Development, which argues that the proposed cuts would “help poor people in developing countries to improve their lives.”

The cuts could also “provide a much- needed push to successful conclusion of the World Trade Organization's Doha Round of trade talks, especially if they prompt Europe to cut its own lavish subsidies,” according to CGD President Nancy Bridsall.

Echoing these views is the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agricultural Trade and Policy, which argues that subsidies have contributed to the dumping of farm products that harms producers worldwide, including U.S. farmers.

Even so, the likelihood that Congress will comply with the administration’s proposal remains questionable.

Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, for instance, believes that in terms overall budget reductions, Bush will get his way, though in the end, the cuts may not turn out “exactly the way the president has suggested.”

The proposal continues to draw withering fire from farm groups, especially rice and cotton farmers in the Deep South who will be most affected.

“If you want to do away with family farms, do away with subsidies,” says Daryl Burney, a cotton producer who runs a 1000-acre operation in Coffeeville, Miss.

Burney and other cotton producers have garnered some powerfu allies, notably Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochrane, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, newly appointed chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Indeed, Chambliss already has stated that it’s unfair for the Bush administration to reduce crop payments that other producers receive through conservation programs.

Meanwhile, Cochrane has accused the president of targeting payments to cotton and rice farmers because this will save more money and affect a smaller number of farmers.

“I guess they thought it was better not to have 50 states made at you and just have five states mad at you,” he said.

This may account for why the Southwest Farm Press' Ron Smith has speculated that the president proposals could spark a form of intended congressional bipartisanship.

“If President Bush was looking for an issue that would create a bi-partisan mood in the U.S. Congress, he found it. Democrats and Republicans alike have united to criticize proposed cuts in the agricultural budget.”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 11, 2005 04:18 PM | TrackBack