Because Really, My Tax Money Needs to Lock in the Windfall Historically High Price of Corn

The Washington Post today finds even more kernels of (subsidized) corn in the moose-turd pie that is the $307 billion farm bill:

Since the amount of the subsidy for 2009 is tied to recent record prices, farmers could reap a windfall if prices drop suddenly.

"I don't think many people on the House side who voted for the farm bill realized there were $16 billion in potential higher costs in there," said Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Conner. "The budget exposure is tremendous." […]

The Agriculture Department estimates that subsidy payments to corn farmers alone could reach $10 billion a year if prices—which have been $5 to $6 a bushel—were to drop to $3.25 a bushel, a level seen as recently as last year. […]

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), a strong critic of the new farm bill, accused House and Senate negotiators of "unbelievable gall."

"I don't think any of us had a clue this was in there. It was simply dropped into the conference report," he said.

This gives me a rare opportunity to agree wholeheartedly with anti-libertarian New York Times columnist David Brooks: John Sidney McCain is a thousand times better on this than Barack Hussein Obama, and one of the principal virtues of the coming McCain presidency is the prospect of him just vetoing the crap out of lousy legislation produced by emboldened Democrats (who suffer from a singular lack of Jeff Flakes).

See Flake's reason.tv interviews here. Jacob Sullum on the "bipartisan folly of farm subsidies" here.