A Stitch in Haste

First it was revealed that you don't actually have to farm to get taxpayer-funded farm subsidies.

Now we learn that you don't have suffer from drought to get taxpayer-funded drought relief.

On a clear, cold morning in February 2003, Nico de Boer heard what sounded like a clap of thunder and stepped outside his hillside home for a look. High above the tree line, the 40-year-old dairy farmer saw a trail of smoke curling across the sky -- all that remained of the space shuttle Columbia.

Weeks later, de Boer was startled to learn that he was one of hundreds of East Texas ranchers entitled to up to $40,000 in disaster compensation from the federal government, even though the nearest debris landed 10 to 20 miles from his cattle.
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In all, the Livestock Compensation Program cost taxpayers $1.2 billion during its two years of existence, 2002 and 2003. Of that, $635 million went to ranchers and dairy farmers in areas where there was moderate drought or none at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post. None of the ranchers were required to prove they suffered an actual loss. The government simply sent each of them a check based on the number of cattle they owned.

No actual loss? I wonder how the Katrina victims would feel about that.

And a per-steer subsidy of course inevitably means that larger (i.e., wealthier) ranchers get more taxpayer money. Because we have to help those "in need." Great disaster, if you can get it.

Those who insist that the redistributionist state can serve supposedly "noble" purposes forget that the people who create and administer such programs are as a group anything but "noble" --

Hurriedly drafted by the Bush administration in 2002 and expanded by Congress the following year, the relief plan rapidly became an expensive part of the government's sprawling system of entitlements for farmers, which topped $25 billion last year.

This Congress -- this Republican Congress -- has repeatedly shown that it has no scruples whatsoever when it comes to buying votes.

Remember, much of this no-disaster relief goes to Texas ranchers. What state is President Bush from again? Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay?

And when you factor in the disproportionate representation of the agricultural "fly-over states" in the Senate, how can farmers and ranchers not, um, "reap" a windfall, while the rest of us are, um, "slaughtered" by redistributionist, Politics of Pull programs such as this outrage?

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Incidentally, if beef is unhealthy, then why are we subsidizing it in the first place? Shouldn't we be taxing cattle rather than underwriting it?