If you're like most people, you probably conjure up a mental image of the sun setting over a corn field. Back over that field, in the distance, you might see an old but solid looking two-story farm house. There, on the porch of that house, resting in the porch swing after sixteen hours of hard, back-breaking farm labor, you might imagine an old fella in bibbed overalls and a straw hat. It's not hard to picture him using his work-callused hands to strum a guitar and sing a classic country song (maybe "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain") as he watches the sun go down behind all those acres of corn, thanking God for another healthy, productive day, and praying for just a little more rain before month's end.

It's not hard to like a guy like that. Hell, I just now made him up out of thin air and I like him just fine. I'd even join Willie Nelson and John Mellancamp in a little fund-raising hootinanny for a guy like that.

I'm sure those kinds of farmers exist. Somewhere. And I'm sure they're every bit as honorable and hard-working as we imagine they are. But the truth is that the farmers that the federal government subsidizes... the ones that the feds give our tax money to, are often something else all together. Sometimes they're millionaire basketball players, media barons, and even Enron executives.

Check out these figures that the Heritage Foundation unearthed, with a ca-ching ca-ching here and a ca-ching ca-ching there.

Permalink -- Posted by Darrell at 19:29