House Farm Bill: “A Major Achievement?”

On Friday, the Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive new farm bill. In a front page story on Saturday, the Washington Post reported:

The House yesterday passed a far-reaching new farm bill that preserves the existing system of subsidies for commercial farmers and adds billions of dollars for conservation, nutrition and new agricultural sectors.

Passage of the 741-page bill by a vote of 231 to 191, after partisan battling unusual for farm legislation, was a major achievement for the new Democratic leadership.

“A major achievement?" It says a lot about the political culture in our nation’s capital that passing a bill that basically continues more than 80 years of failed farm policy with minimal reforms is considered a major achievement.

In Washington, achievement is measured by how much legislation is passed and how much money is spent, not by whether the nation’s interests are advanced. For reasons we have outlined in great detail at Cato, the policies contained in the House farm bill benefit a small number of farmers at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

Some achievement.