MARCH 2014
policy professor Nicholas Carnes demonstrates that farmers and farm owners are
disproportionately found in several influential districts. This pressure at the polls
forces politicians from both sides of the
aisle to support farm subsidies. Bellemare
and Carnes also found lobbying and legislator preferences to have an effect at
polls, but these forces were found to be
less important than previously imagined.
Unfortunately for the American public, these subsidies are costly and the
benefits go to very few. In an article for
Bloomberg, David J. Lynch and Alan
Bjerga note the crop insurance subsidy
costs the government about $14 billion
each year. At the same time, commodity
prices are at record highs, and commercial farm households and multi-million
dollar farming operations are seeing their
profits increase. Returning to Reidl’s
comparison of the crops receiving subsidies and crops that are not, it appears
subsidies are not critical for farming operations. Even ignoring the statisticallynegligible one million dollars of farm
subsidy fraud, the program is inefficient. Extreme circumstances aside (such
as drought or the Great Depression),
farm subsidies are a waste of money.
DOMESTIC
While the analysis of farm subsidies
is relatively straightforward, analyzing
SNAP is a more delicate operation. Regrettably, few politicians wish to undertake the proper analysis, and turn SNAP
and other welfare programs into partisan issues. As Dylan Matthews wrote
for the Washington Post, votes on food
stamps are based more upon party lines
than they are on district need. In popular media, SNAP debates arise around
particular examples. Consider the case
of Jason Greenslate, a 28 year old California surfer living on food stamps to
support a failing arts career. Cases like
these prompted Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota to
call for an end to “the culture of permanent dependency,” a sentiment echoed by
his party. House Speaker John Boehner
said slashing food stamps “makes getting
Americans back to work a priority again.”
However, Greenslate is one person
out of millions, and Boehner’s “back to
work” suggestion is incompatible with
SNAP data. A report for the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities found nearly
seventy five percent of SNAP recipients
were households with children; only
about ten percent of SNAP recipients
were able-bodied dependents without
disabilities. In the words of Bruce Lesley,
president of the First Focus Campaign
for Children, “the federal government
has budget problems, but children didn’t
cause them, and cutting anti-hunger investments is the wrong way to solve
them.” Additionally, SNAP is one of the
best ways to stimulate the economy. A report by Moody’s Analytics found that every dollar spent on SNAP generated $1.73
throughout the economy, making it one
of the best forms of government stimulus.
This is not to say SNAP is perfect.
While the USDA has tracked SNAP fraud
since 1993 and has largely reduced it, such
fraud still represents about a cent on every dollar spent. SNAP does not address
issues with food deserts either--another
issue with providing nutrition assistance.
Despite these flaws, the SNAP debate
hinges on partisan motivation more so
than on creating a more effective program.
SNAP and farm subsidies are just
two of the ways the current political
system cloud proper economic judgment. As career politicians and party
loyalists throw data analysis to the
wind, they rob the American public of their money and their benefits.
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