Farm Aid?

Lot's of talk about reforming the Department of Agriculture's practice of giving farmers cash for loads of reasons.

The House (or Da Hey-Ouuuuse for the cool kids) is set to debate a bill that would stop subsidies for farmers with more than $1 million in adjusted gross income. Not huge, and largely cosmetic, but it is something. However it does bring up the idea that maybe, just maybe, all subsidies should cap out at companies making more than $1 million in agi.

Also, turns out the Department of Agriculture paid out over $1.1 billion to dead farmers. Wow. the aptly acronymed DOA relies on the kindness of others to report when someone dies and payments should stop. My favorite is that the DOA not only defends this practice of trusting people to say "Hey, quit sending me free money" but actually has the gall to then say, "that any overpayments would amount to less than 1 percent of farm subsidies paid between 1999 and 2005." This tells you two things. One, the DOA pays out way too much money. Two, and more importantly, some bureaucrat feels that $1.1 billion just isn't a lot of money. $1.1 billion is "oh well, what can you do?" I feel like just uttering those words is a fireable offense.

And this leads me to today's rant. The problem with government is that people are spending other peoples money. Lots of it, with no repercussions or context. Its always, always easier to spend a lot of someone else's money. The same folks that cut out coupons (always a smart move) are the same folks that feel like any random spending project is OK. The good news for all the H-Blog's readers (Hi Ma) is that I don't just come with rants, I come with solutions. My humble solution is to tie government pay to spending. Waste 1% of your budget, you lose 1% of your pay. Go over budget by 10%, you give 10% of your pay as the first "loan" in to cover it. If wasting 1% of my money isn't a big deal, you can certainly give up 1% of yours. If something is so important that you need to blow the budget by 10% certainly it must be important enough for you, the decider, to put up 10% too.

Now to come out of the rant. The DOA already pays out subsidies to dead farmers for two years so the family has time to get its affairs in order. Nice sentiment, but why does that only apply to farmers? Why can't every estate get money from the feds when there's a death in the family? Shouldn't the estate of an owner of a restaurant get two years of free money to get things in order? Look, I have to admit that I have a soft spot farmers. I think a nation needs to be able to feed itself, I look at it as a matter of national security. But some of these provisions are just too much. I'd probably be cool with some kind of federally backed insurance pool.