The Insane Spending in the So-Called “Farm Bill”

“Farm bill” actually finances food stamps and insurance companies while taxing Christmas trees

President Obama signed the so-called Farm Bill on Friday in front of a John Deere tractor, but the legislation had little to do with agriculture. Nearly eighty percent of its funding will go to food stamps.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has seen a 358% increase in cost since 2000. Writing for Rare last week, Rebekah Johansen pointed out that the food stamp program leaks hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fraud while ironically paying for less than nutritious junk food.

Food stamps aren’t the only area where this legislation will waste colossal amounts of money. The bill continues a market access program that once funded a reality TV show in India. It will block the Agriculture Department from negotiating lower payments to insurance companies – a move expected to cost billions in lost savings. It will also impose what is effectively a new tax on Christmas trees.

The Club for Growth has called the bill “a ‘Christmas Tree’ bill where there’s a gift for practically every special interest group out there with a well-connected lobbyist.”

Progressives have portrayed the bill as a fiscally conservative measure that “cuts food stamps” and will cause “a surge of hungry people.” In reality, the farm bill merely fails to maintain the obscenely high level of food stamp spending on which Democrats insisted. It will reduce the current food stamp budget by about 1 percent.