If farm subsidies are so expensive and their distribution is so at odds with
their stated goals, how does this program survive? The answer is that the $390
total cost per year to the typical American family of farm subsidies is dwarfed by
the enormous gain of $19,600 to the typical farm from farm subsidies. These
farms are able to effectively organize and lobby for the maintenance of the subsidy
and price support programs, and the larger group of taxpayers hurt by these
programs are not. Recognizing this imbalance, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana,
the Agriculture Committee’s ranking Republican, refused to attend President
Bush’s signing of the 2002 farm bill, calling it “a recipe for a great deal of
hurt and sadness, and at the expense of a huge transfer payment from a majority
of Americans to a very few.” Furthermore, candidates in presidential primaries
have their first trials in Iowa, the leading recipient of farm subsidies, so opposition
to farm subsidies can be quite perilous to a presidential candidate