If the Mulch Blog gets to make movie references, so do I.

We're back on the farm bill wagon, and I have to say it is inspired by the Mulch Blog, which has a great post on the latest so-called payment limits shenanigans being considered by Congress. Referencing the pitiful agreement between Congressional farm bill negotiators, it includes the following memorable lines:

Make that a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham...

It's a farce of a masquerade of a burlesque of a whoopee cushion.

I'm swooning over here. Continuing on a more serious note:

As we've said before, there is plenty of money in this bill to increase food stamps, conservation, and other priorities. Democrats just have to demonstrate the political backbone to face down the subsidy lobby.

If Democratic leaders can't do that now, when subsidized farmers are making record profits from the market, they'll never do it.

Damn straight. And it is pretty clear that they don't have the political backbone to face down the subsidy lobby- for many, it isn't even clear they have any interest in doing so at all. And this is really classic Washington politics- nobody ever wants to have to decide which programs are worth funding. They'll go through months of political budget gymnastics to find "offsets", all in an effort to avoid having to make tough choices. The money is there- it just needs to go to the programs that deserve it.

Also today, the Politico notes the political irony surrounding Bush's insistence on a lower adjusted gross income limit on farm programs:

Trying to close the books on a new farm bill, Congress and the White House are bumping up against the uncomfortable fact that President Bush twice last year vetoed health care bills for working families who earn far less than most farmers getting subsidies. Income eligibility was a central issue in those veto fights as Bush opposed a bipartisan effort to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program up the poverty ladder.

The irony weighs most heavily on Republicans who backed Bush on his vetoes but are now under pressure from commodity interests, especially in the South, to resist income caps on farmers.
In the Georgia Republican delegation, for example, Rep. Nathan Deal was one of those who pressed hardest for strict income caps on SCHIP; his colleague, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican among Senate farm bill negotiators, has only reluctantly agreed to the farm income caps proposed Wednesday.

Ah, the hypocrisy. Is anyone really surprised by this? We've pointed out time and again that income caps are ineffective by themselves, but no mind. Last fall, with the support of many of the same congressmen now opposing him on farm bill income limits, Bush vetoed an SCHIP bill that would have put a 300 percent of poverty rate income cap on SCHIP. Once you hear the numbers involved, you'll either laugh out loud or start crying.:

A 300 percent cap would translate into about $51,510 for a family of three — a single mother and two children, for example. In comparison, the $950,000 threshold lawmakers envision for the farm bill would be the equivalent of about 5,500 percent of poverty.

And as the Mulch Blog explains, even that $950K number isn't firm. What a farce. I don't know what else to say. If this is the best the Ag Committee and Congressional leadership can do, they should be ashamed.