“Actively engaged” is such a relative term
Yesterday the GAO issued a report on the Department of Agriculture’s farm subsidy program. Amongst the findings:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion over seven years to the estates or companies of deceased farmers and routinely failed to conduct reviews required to ensure that the payments were properly made, according to a government report.
In a selection of 181 cases from 1999 to 2005, the Government Accountability Office found that officials approved payments without any review 40 percent of the time.
The report cited a 1,900-acre soybean and corn farm in Illinois that collected $400,000 on behalf of an owner who lived in Florida before his death in 1995. The company did not notify the government of the death but certified each year that the dead shareholder, who owned 40 percent of the company, was “actively engaged” in managing the farm.
Naturally this report acted as a wake up call to the members of congress currently debating a new farm bill right? Not exactly:
Instead, the House Agriculture Committee has produced a bill that essentially maintains current subsidy programs, with some minor tweaks billed as “reforms.” Among them is a provision that would disqualify a farmer with an annual adjusted gross income of $1 million — yes, $1 million — from receiving subsidies. That’s a pathetic five times the $200,000 cap President Bush proposed earlier this year. […]
So what is the speaker’s take on this rotten bill? It “represents a critical first step toward reform,” Ms. Pelosi said last week. That’s the wrong answer.
If that’s the first step, we’ve got a long journey ahead of us.
on July 26th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Additionally, folks like Paul Allen and Scottie Pippen are among those “farmers” receiving federal subsidies.