Agriculture

U.S. Farm Subsidies: Billions and Billions Served

Policy Today magazine cover
March 1, 2006

What's the real cost of an ear of corn?

It sounds all too familiar. A New Deal-era government program that many critics assail as misdirected and in need of fundamental reform—or perhaps irreversibly broken. Social Security? You bet. But that description seems just as relevant for America's farm subsidy and price-support programs. But unlike Social Security reform—a go-to-the-mattresses cause for only conservative Republicans and free-market think tanks—U.S. agricultural policies have somehow managed to draw heavy flak from both the Left and the Right.

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