This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, November 12th, 2007. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Farm Bill is the ultimate example of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, says Cato Institute

Trade Policy analyst Sally James, farm subsidies she argues are hard to justify on their

merits, and even harder to justify when they go to massive corporate farms.

Things are so great in farm country that the income is this year their net farm income is

projected to increase by about 44 percent the debt to asset ratio is the

lowest it's ever been commodity prices are very high by historical standards.

And there is a huge, on the other side, a groundswell of support

for reforming these farm programs,

and not just by the usual suspects such as the Cato Institute but Oxfam America

Bread for the World which is like a anti-hunger anti-poverty religious-based group

environmental groups are all pointing out the problems with these farm programs and why they should be reformed.

And it's just very, very frustrating that so far politicians have not been able to take the

leadership and to show it by standing up to farm constituencies, farm lobby groups that are just so powerful and it really does

beg the question, what would it take for those interests to be overridden and for reform

to occur?

U.S. Senator Ben Nelson is and for reform to occur.

U.S. Senator Ben Nelson is co-sponsoring a measure that would limit some federal subsidies

available to farmers, he says mega farms should not receive mega payments. Senators Byron Dorgan and Charles Grassley introduced the amendment that would limit a married couple to $250,000 in subsidies per year.

Current law allows $360000 dollars annually.

Could you evaluate that proposal?

The proposal in principle is a good one and that is that so many of these, the commodity

...