In the March 20 issue of Forbes magazine, Brandon Copple notes that legislation passed a few years ago was meant to move U.S. farming away from a managed economy into the free market. This was to be accomplished by shifting from "ad hoc disaster assistance" to "enhanced crop insurance, delivered through the private sector and backed by the Treasury."
However, not all that much has changed. Copple notes:
- From 1995 to 1998, taxpayers picked up $5.5 billion of the cost of crop insurance, while $3.4 billion came from farmers.
- In addition, Congress paid out $6 billion in emergency farm aid in 1998 and $9 billion last year.
Unfortunately, this should surprise no one. Taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance is not a free-market reform. Stopping all taxpayer subsidies to farmers is true free-market reform.
