Sallie James

Politico yesterday reported that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is upset. According to him, the USDA just don’t get no respect:

Between the lines of a front-page Wall Street Journal article about farm subsidies [$] is an instructive example of the ratchet effect:

An economist in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois posted an interesting entry on the FarmDocDaily blog yesterday, claiming that farm subsidies flowing to the biggest farms is a sign of progressivity.

Mark Bittman had a column on the NYTimes online "Opinionator" blog yesterday on farm subsidies. He included a fairly (but not completely) thorough list of what is wrong with farm subsidies in America, but he ultimately comes down on the side of "fixing" farm subsidies rather than ending them altogether.