By all means derail it, Josh. Food stamps would be included somewhere down the line. This agrabusiness - urban alliance is nauseating.

At least Josh didn't accuse them of 'playing chicken' with the farm bill...

Yeah, that would have been corny, jet.  

Other than some good ideas on immigration, Bush hasn't done much that I respect in the last 7 years,   But I'll happily support him in his veto, and hope it is sustained (although I can pretty much count on the whole Iowa delegation voting to override).

Farrm subsidies are a travesty in this country.  My "hard working and self reliant" neighbors who are in the cash grain (corn, soybeans) business actually work about 12 weeks of the year (6 to plant and 6 to harvest), and have basically lived on government handouts for years.  Now that they are actually getting a very good price for their crops - in no small part due to other government subsidies for ethanol - how do they respond?  By bulldozing terraces and CRP tree plantings that government money paid them to build or plant, so they can grow a few more bushels of corn, and insisting that they still need the subsidies.  The whole damned countryside here looks suddenly like a construction zone.

So, bless Bush for taking a stand on this one.

Those puns were so bad I almost soiled myself.

I am in full support of Bush on this one. "Travesty" is the right word, and sdemuth captures the situation nicely. I have seen good suggestions that the legislation be renamed the "Farm and Food Bill" to highlight the full nature of the programs in question, and to help expose the fact that most of our subsidy dollars are not in fact going to food. The government does little to nothing to support vegetables, dairy, and most healthy whole foods that we are encouraged to eat, but heavily supports the sugar and corn that make up the worst foods. Our programs are almost entirely aimed at benefiting the largest producers and manufacturers, ignoring independant small farmers.

None of the presidential candidates have a clue on this one. They express concern for the decline of rural America while continuing to support policies that have devastated small, independant farmers since WWII, and especially since Nixon. They express concern about national health and want to implement new health care policies, while remaining ignorant or afraid of the agricultural practices and policies that have created many of the health concerns we now face. You cannot solve major issues piecemeal; you must look at the whole and enact integrated policies that support one another. So far all the candidates are taking a scattershot approach that will increase government spending and waste while achieving nothing due to conflicting results.

At the very least, as Bush has said, we need to move back toward a system of crop insurance rather than subsidy. This would allow some support for a necessary yet risky business, while tying those payments to results rather than the arbitrary handouts we have now. Crop insurance should also be tied to the skill and quality of the farmer and farm; offer better crop insurance rates to farmers using sustainable practices and who demonstrate skill and care in their field, while raising rates on industrial producers who do not take care of their land. This is no different than insurance policies in other areas; the best, most reliable consumers get better rates, the dangerous ones get higher rates.

"Farmers" are not a monolithic group; even within a single crop like corn there is a wide variety in skill, experience, method, care, and result. We should treat farmers like the business people they are, weeding out the bad ones and rewarding the good ones, not with subsidies but with fair insurance rates to compensate their risk. I don't care how many generations your family has been on the farm if you're bad or lazy at what you do; America is not a feudal society.

Here here.  Bush has been a nightmare but they guy seems to be interested in doing at least a few good things before he goes.

As for the new candidates, I am more optimistic than literatehobo.  I think there's a chance for change here.  No one has been better on farm bill travesties than John McCain -- that's why he's written off Iowa in 2000 and 2008.  Obama has shown political courage recently with the gas tax holiday.  And Senator Clinton, in the unlikely event she somehow survives, has put forth extremely detailed and interesting proposals for how to fight corporate welfare.

I was surprised to hear he finally met a corporate-welfare policy he didn't like, but good for Bush.  I suspect his courage comes from knowing he'll be done with politics in less than a year.  But it's foolish for candidates to avoid this issue for fear of being painted as "anti-farmer".  There's so much damning evidence against agribusiness subsidies that it wouldn't be difficult to fashion an informative yet emotionally appealing ad campaign that could easily sway the (increasingly urban) American public against them.   Just show a mega-farm in the background and voice over, "Each year, YOU pay farm corporations like this $25 billion to grow food you don't want.  At the same time, you pay others to grow...nothing.  This is your tax dollars at work.  End farm subsidies."

dmehlhorn,

I agree there's a chance, but don't share your faith. McCain may be against subsidies, but it's purely on an ideological level. He seems to know little about agriculture, and his opposition seems more of a knee-jerk small-government-conservative thing. Not that I disagree with that, but I don't think it's coming from an educated position with him. It's laughable to claim that "No one has been better on farm bill travesties than John McCain". Reflexibly opposing subsidies is not the same as actively working to fix and reform the system, the way that other Senators have done.

Obama's "political courage" on gas taxes has nothing to do with ag policy, about which he truly knows nothing, as his own web site's policy papers show. Clinton shows the most promise, as a Senator who has actually worked actively with New York small farmers to support local and direct marketing of farm products, but even she has shown little sign of taking on more than the most symbolic farm bill reform. "Fighting corporate welfare" does not show an understanding of agriculture.

To accurately reform the system, one must actually understand how it works on a level deeper than most politicians have, simply because even those from farm states tend to be urban/suburban types with little dirt under their nails, and any "farmers" who do reach that level of politics tend to be pretty high up in the corporate ag world anyway, since they have the money and time to spare to run for office. The latter are probably the most dangerous, as they have a veneer of respectability that hides their one-sided approach to a very diverse agricultural system.

This isn't a good thing at all.

If you look past the farm subsidies, most the "farm bill" is for nutrition and food stamps.  

In the Farm bill budget the administration proposed they estimated that cost of commodities at 74 million from 2008 to 2017,  while the Nutrition program was 438 billion!.  Almost 6 times more spent on Nutrition.

Are there really that many rich land owners living in the cities and collecting subsidies they shouldn't?

(I found the data here www.usda.gov/.../07sumbudgetscore.pdf)

Wow, kudos for Bush? What's the world coming to?

What is wrong with having a line-item veto by the way? Proposals that have nothing to do with the main bill being passed should not be included in the bill.

Peter k: Bush is right nonetheless.  The infernal linkage of the food stamps and other nutrition program to what amounts to corporate and landowner welfare needs to be broken.  Congress can easily enough pass a bill that does not link these two, if Bush stands firm on the subsidies.