A Different Farm Bill

Here's a bill I think that I could support, and one that could conceivably pass in Congress as well.  I know that is a bold prediction, but I have a plan.  Maybe it's the liberal big spender in me, but I thought if there is something that you want then the best way to get it is to throw a bunch of money at the people that might be likely to oppose it.  In this case it is a liberal bill, so i'd be throwing money at conservative states.

The bill I am proposing is a food production bill, but it would be quite different from what we now call the Farm Bill.  The Farm Bill is a regularly renewed program that spends a bunch of money subsidizing agriculture production (or like crop insurance, maybe some other stuff I don't know exactly) which generally goes to conservative states in the South and Midwest (but probably elsewhere too).  It also funds a lot (if not all) of the food stamp programs that feed some of our nation's low income earners.

I would like to see a bill that encourages a lot of domestic production of a variety of produce grown in an environmentally sound manner (not just Organic but with concerted land management).  This produce would be directed toward the domestic market and would be provided at a significantly reduced cost, especially targeting low income earners.  In exchange for voting for this generously liberal program, I would be willing to spend a bunch of money subsidizing the farmers who would grow this food.

I'm happy to subsidize American farmers and American food production, but in exchange for these subsides shouldn't we at least expect that we would get the most natural and wholesome food?  Why should we have to eat "food" that many other countries refuse to import?  And furthermore, why should we ever pay farmers to leave fields fallow (unplanted) in an effort to keep commodity prices at a certain point, when we have children in our country and others who are hungry and relying on food stamps to get low cost low nutrition food?

I think that we could remedy this problem, the key is to offer to send a whole bunch of money to conservative states' agriculture business.  Even if these conservative senators don't like "big government" (or poor children if you're a bit more cynical), once their constituents find out about the windfall we're offering them, I think they'll have to come on board.

Let's do it!