When President Bush in his State of the Union speech declared that, “We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol,” I wondered how much he was thinking about investing because earlier in the month President Bush declared on reducing the budget deficit in the next five years.
Well, ironically enough, according to Reuters (via The Washington Post) the U.S. will be cutting back on farm subsidies – except for ones that could produce ethanol. Personally I've always disliked any and all farm subsidies. With this news though of the President’s subsidy cuts not really cutting, but probably shifting funds more towards the production of ethanol, I think it’s time I started investing in my friend’s corn fields…now.
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Why do you dislike farm subsidies? Just curious...
I think farm subdisides are inherently inefficient. They inflate the world world price of certain goods, let alone our price. In fact, at the Doha Round of the 2006 WTO negotiations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_round), the trade talks were all but completelt halled because the U.S. refuses to back down on its own farm subsidies.
If I'm a poor restaurant owner, why should I get assistance from the government if my business isn't doing well? But if your a farmer, you better believe you're expecting a check from Uncle Sam.
Even Greg Mankiw (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/08/our-insane-farm-policy.html) links to an article from Jonah Goldberg in agreement to the criticism of our farm policy. Now, mind you, it's EXTREMELY difficult for me to agree with anything Jonah Goldberg says, but I agree with him on the article that Greg linked to on the U.S's farm policy.
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