The St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls on congress to seriously consider proposals to reform the current, dysfunctional system of agricultural subsidies: “America’s $19 billion system of farm subsidies encourages farmers to grow too much of certain crops, then taps the taxpayers for subsidies when prices fall, as they inevitably do. It favors farmers who grow corn, soy, cotton, rice and wheat over those who grow fruit and vegetables or raise livestock. Growers of the five favored crops now receive 90 percent of U.S. farm aid.

The system is, in two words, a mess and, in a few more words than that, welfare for the wealthy. Last year, the United States sent subsidy checks to 80,000 farmers whose incomes were greater than $200,000 per year and to large-scale corporate farms as well.”

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