EDITORIAL

Apr 20, 2009      Chattanooga Times/Free Press

Apr. 20, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Federal subsidies of all sorts are unwise and unconstitutional, but some are more appalling than others.

Did you read about how much you pay, through your tax dollars, to grow water-intensive crops in desert areas of Arizona and California?

The federal government has shelled out nearly $700 million over just the past two years to farmers in "the most seriously drought-stricken states in the West" to grow crops such as rice, The Associated Press reported. If you've ever seen pictures of rice paddies in the Far East, you know that they have to be flooded with water. And so it is with the government-sponsored rice paddies in the Western United States.

But this particular subsidy is worse than some others because it is actually two subsidies rolled into one. First, government pays the farmers to grow the crops. Then, it pays much of the cost of the water needed for the massive irrigation that the crops require in such a parched region.

And all this takes place while residents of the states in question are under severe water-use restrictions because of extreme drought conditions!

Not surprisingly, the farmers receiving the subsidies and the government officials who support them are fiercely defending the subsidies as necessary to protect jobs. (Do you get a subsidy to protect your job in this weak economy?)

But how long is government supposed to prop up this or that sector of the economy? These programs, like many farm subsidies, have been in existence since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Is there never a point at which farmers and recipients of subsidies for other industries simply have to compete in the free market as most Americans do?

The difficulty of dismantling harmful government programs once they have begun is the very reason why Congress ought to obey the constitutional limits on its powers. But given the way Washington is spending your money today, it is doubtful that it will stop paying farmers to grow crops in the desert anytime soon.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0202-34270240

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