Popcorn is not a trivial matter. I am reminded of that at the movies
where buttered buckets of the stuff are consumed and the surplus spread
on the floor under my seat.
But I did not realize the popcorn problem is so severe that a deficit-bedeviled
federal government must shoulder yet another burden to protect its citizens.
On April 4th, when President Clinton signed the "Freedom to Farm Act,"
it became the legal responsibility of our national government "to ensure
the benefits of popcorn are available to the people of the United States"
by "strengthen[ing] the position of the popcorn industry in the marketplace."
Awesome.
And all this in a bill heralded as a revolutionary step towards the deregulation
of agriculture, the ending of farm subsidies, and "the most sweeping
change in agricultural policy in the last 60 years."
A more appropriate title for this bill might be "The Slightly More
Flexible Reform Act." Its reforms are more illusory than real, and
less permanent than might be expected. And popcorn is the least of its follies.
What changes under the new farm law? Most notably, for the first time there
will be a cap on farm spending. The law replaces traditional subsidy payments
with a fixed but declining level of transition payments to farmers ($36
billion over seven years). It also ends federal authority to hold farm land
out of production. However, at the end of seven years, unless Congress acts,
the old farm policies (subsidy payments and land set-asides) automatically
come back into effect.
What of the so-called "freedom" under the reform bill? The act
was promoted as allowing farmers the freedom to plant whatever crop was
most likely to produce the highest profit. This would seem to mean that,
if world market prices for wheat were low but prices for tomatoes were high,
then wheat farmers might switch to producing tomatoes. Not so. A farmer
now growing subsidized crops can only switch to another subsidized crop; essentially other grains, cotton or rice.
What doesn't change under the new farm bill? A lot. American consumers will
continue to pay higher prices than the rest of the world's citizens for
sugar, peanuts, and most dairy products, because these crops will continue
to get subsidies amounting to more then $2 billion a year. Soybean subsidies
will actually increase. Americans will also continue to foot the bill for
the Market Promotion Program, which helps promote U.S. agricultural products
overseas; including, henceforth, popcorn. Landowners don't get those
regulatory exemptions promised for temporary wetlands under one acre in
size. Farmers and ranchers will continue to have to bear the entire financial
burden of the general public's desire for no net loss of mud puddles.
The farm bill is also surprising because of the new bureaucracies that it
creates. There's a new "National Natural Resources Conservation Foundation"
to promote the conservation of natural resources on private lands, in part
through education grants to nonprofit organizations. The nation's top 10
environmental organizations already receive more than $500 million a year
in grants and donations, so they are more than capable of promoting their
viewpoint without any help from taxpayers.
Also, a new food safety panel is created, adding one more layer of bureaucracy
to the Department of Agriculture. Both consumer groups and members of the
meat and poultry industries have criticized this program. Following tried
and true Washington logic, if neither industry nor consumers like a program,
it must be good.
These new programs might surprise people who thought the Republican promises
to "get government off the backs of people" and presidential statements
that the "era of big government is over" would mean a reduction
in the number of federal programs and bureaucracies, not the creation of
new ones.
The most perverse part of the new farm bill calls for spending $300 million
to acquire about 100,000 acres of the Florida Everglades. Protecting the
Everglades may be in the public interest, but the simplest way of conserving
the Everglades would be to end the sugar subsidy that allows inefficient
sugar producers to continue to operate in the fragile Everglades ecosystem.
Then we could save the money and the Everglades. But sugar subsidies do
not seem to be a part of the era of big government that President Clinton
assures us is over.
Like the monsters in Hollywood movies, big government just keeps coming
back. So on Saturday night, enjoy "Braveheart's" anguished cry
for freedom, knowing that Washington now has its hand in your bag of popcorn.
Or if that strikes you as sensible, turn to Section 551 of the Freedom to
Farm Act. It creates the "National Kiwifruit Research, Promotion, and
Consumer Information Act."
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founded in 1983 and internationally known for its studies on public policy
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