George Rebane

[This is a recent exchange with ‘Dick’ Dickenson about the much-hyped, soon to be disastrous ethanol subsidy program that joins the other farm and corporate subsidy programs from the feds.]

[Rebane] By any reasonable (i.e. non-political) measure, America’s ethanol subsidy program is ill-begotten for all concerned except the already heavily subsidized farmers and refinery speculators.  To look at the problem on a wider scale, take a look at this week’s piece on food in the Economist.  Thoughts?

[Dickenson] I agree.  The ethanol issue is just the latest development in the scandalous, near criminal, farm price subsidy program, which I mean globally, not just in the U.S.  U.S. farm price supports had the original and completely justifiable goal in the Depression/Dust Bowl ’30s of helping bankrupt farmers survive until the rains returned and helping ensure the nation’s food supply–the national reserves of grains and meats then were well below the six month supply that is still the standard.

What has happened, of course, like so many other governmental programs, federal, state, and local, is that the politically influential class has steadily transformed it from an attempt to help the family farmer into a rich-get-richer program–also see pharmaceuticals, banking (in the current mortgage "bailout" program), etc., the idea that if you’re big enough, no matter how foolish and incompetent you’ve been, the government won’t let you go bankrupt because of the possible damage to the national economy.  I recall the hundreds of thousands in subsidy payments that the late Sen. "Sunny Jim" Eastland, that racist old tyrant, got for his huge cotton holdings in the Mississippi delta and that Sam Donaldson got (or gets) a six-figure subsidy for mohair (goats) he raises on his gentleman farmer’s vacation ranch in New Mexico.

The farm subsidy program is a @#$%^*& disgrace and not just in the U.S.  Most other agriculture producing countries are just as guilty.  I did a piece on it at the Post in which I included the fact that at the time cotton was 3 cents a pound on the free world market France was subsidizing its cotton farmers in the south at 25 cents, which totally and profoundly skewed the entire market system.  In our country there are so many states and congressional districts that have small but entrenched and powerful ag interests that the inertia of the program just seems to increase.  I have long been bemused by the fact that cotton and rice farmers in California used to be subsidized with taxpayers’ dollars and precious water to raise water-thirsty crops that were already in surplus in a subhumid/semi-arid climate.

My people back in Kansas vigorously denounce the program all the way to the county seat to sign up for their subsidies and "loans" (which had to be repaid only if the market price exceeded the amount of the "loan").  I learned long, long ago that it’s not a topic they wish to dwell on and so we talked about the weather instead.