Remember when the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and promised to end farm subsidies. Of course they chickened out and now agricultural subsidies are back with a vengeance.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, European estimates put U.S. agricultural subsidies at an astonishing $32.2 billion this fiscal year, up from a mere $4.6 billion in 1996. Not to be outdone by the Clinton administration’s expansion of such subsidies, The Bush administration budget prposes an additional $79 billion in farm spending over the next 11 years.
The European Union nations, by the way, are even worse, spending about $90 billion last year to subsidy agriculture. All of which does an excellent job of ensuring that poor farmers in the developing world cannot compete with Western agriculture, and diverts money that could be spent more efficiently into the agricultural sector.
Source:
Farm subsidies and collapsing prices. National Center for Policy Analysis, May 29, 2001.