Washington harvest

A Bush Administration proposal that would reduce the eligibility cap for farm subsidies to an annual adjusted gross income (or AGI) of $200,000, averaged over three years – as opposed to the current cap of $2.5 million – would eliminate subsidies to the rich while keeping them for the merely affluent, says the Wall Street Journal.

Consider who is being helped:

In 2004, 276 Washington, D.C., "farmers" filed an IRS "Schedule F" – for taxpayers who actively participate in their farms – and 80 of them reported AGI of more than $200,000.

Nationwide there were nearly 85,000 Schedule F filers who earned more than $200,000 in 2004, and 25,000 of those received farm payments.

More than 9 per cent of filers in Maryland, 12 per cent from California and Nevada, and no fewer than 13.4 per cent in rustic New Jersey also had at least $200,000 in income.

In addition:

In 2004, another 640,000 Americans who had farm income but don't actively participate in their farms filed IRS form 4835, instead of Schedule F.

About 29,000 of those reported AGI of more than $200,000 – and some 13,000 of those received federal farm payments.

All in all, some 38,000 "farmers" who reported AGI of more than $200,000 in 2004 received more than $400 million in federal farm subsidies.

Source: Editorial, Washington Harvest, Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2007.

For text: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117496325749549982.html

For more on Federal Spending & Budget Issues: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=25

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 03 April 2007