Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

A WSJ editorial this morning describes the farm bill facing a vote this week in Congress:

This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won't stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once a farm subsidy skeptic, but she now has some 30 freshman Democrats from battleground rural districts to protect. So more than $10 billion a year in giveaways to agribusiness is a necessary taxpayer sacrifice to keep her majority.

Mr. Bush is promising a veto, to his credit, but the White House expects even many Republicans to vote to override. The House GOP swears it has learned its spending lesson after 2006. Yet House Minority Leader John Boehner, who opposes the bill himself, isn't rallying GOP opposition. Perhaps there are too many Republicans who crave the handouts too.

Meanwhile, John McCain says "I would veto that bill" and will vote against it in the Senate. Strangely silent is Barack Obama. A major theme of his campaign is to battle corporate special interests in Washington on behalf of the "middle class." Here is one of his first tests, and it'll be fascinating to see if he sides with the well-funded commodity lobby over consumers and taxpayers.

In this election year, both parties are fighting to win the farm vote. But even in Chicago and New Jersey, it doesn't cost $300 billion to buy an election.