Cut farm subsidies.

Byline: The Register-Guard

When President Bush introduced his budget earlier this year, one bright spot was his proposed cut in the obscenely bloated farm subsidy program.

Bush proposed reducing spending on farm programs by $5.4 billion as part of his plan to reduce the federal deficit. While that sounds impressive, it's only 5 percent of what Congress dumps into the trough each year under the 2002 farm bill.

Now, the White House appears to be retreating from even this modest reduction. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johans recently acknowledged to a Senate subcommittee that Bush's proposal to limit government payments to the nation's wealthiest farmers is "sensitive." Lawmakers, he suggested, "may have other proposals to achieve these savings."

While the president's proposal has not been formally withdrawn, the signals seem clear: The administration is about to cave in to agricultural interests that have howled in recent weeks that they were being "Bushwhacked."

That's an absurd claim, given that the president three years ago signed into law a six-year, $249 billion farm bill that increased taxpayer spending on agriculture by more than 80 percent. The bill also abandoned earlier efforts to wean farmers from the nation's senseless and self-defeating system of price supports and commodity payments.

While the 2002 farm bill contained a few positive provisions, including an increase in conservation spending, it has been rightly described as agribusiness welfare. The wealthiest 10 percent of farmers have collected two-thirds of subsidy dollars, while the bottom 80 percent have received one-sixth.

Against that backdrop, Bush's proposed limits were the epitome of moderation. The president sought to limit total payments to individual farmers in a single year to $250,000, compared with the current $360,000. He also proposed closing loopholes that have enabled some farmers to collect more than $1 million a year and scaled back massive commodity programs by 5 percent.

While small in scale, Bush's proposal was a step toward rolling back a program that's out of control and damaging to family farmers, consumers, taxpayers, developing nations and the environment.

U.S. farm subsidies interfere with domestic and foreign markets and force farmers to produce far too much of a few crops. They have contributed to the relentless process of consolidation, as taxpayer money has enabled the nation's largest corporate farms to buy up small- and medium-sized farms.

Bush should not abandon his proposal - and, in fact, should work with Congress to make more substantive cuts. They will be necessary if the United States wants to avoid retaliation by the World Trade Organization, which already has found that the U.S. system of price and income supports for growers violates U.S. commitments.

The nation's farm policies are a glaring example of irresponsible stewardship of tax dollars. Lawmakers are already dumping truckload after truckload of money on wealthy farmers who don't need subsidies to survive. One less truckload will hardly be noticed.