The Farm Bill for the next five years recently passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate.  Why?  Because it looks like each and every member of Congress put his or her own slice of bacon in it!  It seems if you put enough bad, selfish ideas together in one bill, everyone will vote for it.

Lumped in with farm subsidies (which is the first thing developing coutries point to when the U.S. goes after them for dumping goods here, and which are ludicrous on their face given the current climate of rising food pricies worldwide)  are things like tax breaks for race horse owners.  Anyone know of any race horse owners struggling to feed their families?

This is another great example of why we need to limit the size and scope of bills in our legislatures.  This bill is over 600 pages long.  I wonder how many members of Congress have actually read the whole thing?

Break out each piece and make it stand or fall on its own merits.

And if you are going to use tax policy to influence food production, it should be done in  a way that encourages HEALTHY food production.  According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, there is a gross imbalance between what we recommend and what we subsidize.

I think I may have another quote to add to the list on this site:

“Nuts to you!”