The American sugar program is a strong contender for the poster child for crony capitalism. And this year, it’s up for reauthorization. The sugar program in the United States is cronyistic in four main ways. First, the federal government sets…

Washington Forget all the tongue clucking about Washington being so divided and nasty that Democrats and Republicans cannot work together. As the Senate and House proved this week in passing the $867 billion farm bill, when it comes to spending…

As leaders in Congress hammer down the details of the Farm Bill, they should use the Senate’s plan for rural broadband deployment that provides better safeguards against taxpayer waste. Farm Futures reports that negotiators in the House and Senate hope…

Although the revamped Farm Bill now being discussed in Congress includes more taxpayer dollars for rural broadband, the Senate version of the legislation is attempting to establish better safeguards to ensure the money is spent more wisely. Both the House…

America is glutted with cheese. In fact, the size of the American cheese stockpile just hit an all-time high. And before you say that that doesn’t sound like much of a problem to you (or one you’d happily volunteer to…

Someone asked to make a list of lobbyists with the worst reputations on Capitol Hill probably wouldn’t add “the catfish lobby” in a million years. In fact, “the catfish lobby” sounds much more like the entrance to an exhibit at…

Commodity programs are cronyism run amok. Government subsidies (paid for by your tax dollars, of course) protect farmers from reduced crop yield and changing market conditions, at a rate of $2.20 for every dollar they pay in. And that’s not all…

A few weeks ago, we looked into the state of commodity programs from the perspective of farmers. We found that farmers tend to make a great deal of money off these “insurance” programs, as they are designed to function more…

America is a generous country. Taxpayers can take pride in the fact that, under the terms of the 2014 Farm Bill, they will send more than $2 billion worth of food to needy countries this year. Thanks to these aid…

As the battle over the Farm Bill has raged in the background, we’ve been spending the last few weeks looking at the cronyism that is the country’s current agriculture program. We’ve looked at sugar cronyism benefiting a few large producers…