Farm Bill Side Story: Additional Costs of Subsidies

Your government at work: even when something good happens, something bad happens.

In a surprise defeat, the House on Thursday rejected the dense, 600-plus page bill. The bulk of the bill would have funded food stamps as well as a bundle of farm aid programs.

But lawmakers were also hoping to use the legislation to resolve a long-running dispute between the United States and Brazil that is draining U.S. taxpayer dollars every year.
Specifically, the U.S. is paying the South American country $147 million annually. America has shelled out more than $4 billion to date to Brazil.
“I think the average taxpayer would be astounded if they knew how much we’re paying Brazil in bribe money,” said Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., who is trying to end what he describes as the “blackmail payments.”

The money being sent to Brazil is part of the international fallout stemming from U.S. government subsidies for domestic cotton farmers. The U.S. is one of the world’s largest cotton exporters and hands out $3 billion a year in subsidies.</blockquote

So…we’re spending $3 billion a year to subsidize our cotton farmers, that irritates the international community, the WTO sides with them and now we spend $3,147,000,000 annually as a result. And rather than address a waste of taxpayer money so egregious it’s annoying a Democrat on its own, the way Congress works is that it gets wrapped up in a farm bill that really wasn’t about farming. Except for this part.

Makes sense, right?

Yeah, they don’t drug test on the Hill.

Also, raise your hand if you get a headache every time farm subsidies are mentioned.