April 24, 2008

Still Sucky

One of the most wasteful, misguided, and destructive policy the federal government has is farm subsidies. Food prices are at all-time highs, which would make one think that this would be a good time to cut back on farm subsidies. Programs like "direct payments" with just gives cash money straight to farmers. Such thing couldn't continue when farm incomes are at an all-time high, right?

Nope.

1 comment:

Laura said...

It's especially ridiculous at this point to be paying our farmers not to grow. The price of rice has risen globally 68% since the beginning of the year. In third world countries they are having food riots, and even Italy had a food protest recently over the exorbitant prices of pasta.

The experts are saying this is a "temporary" crisis and that prices should even out in about 10 years. 10 years? 10 years of food shortage when so many countries are already subsisting is bound to have devastating effects. It's time to stop the subsidies and let the farmers grow...with the increased need for materials for biofuels, it's not likely to glut the market.