Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Congress got something done last week. It passed a bipartisan, 10 year, trillion dollar farm bill.

The farm bill includes insurance against “adverse price movements”. Isn’t that what the credit default swaps were supposed to do for subprime loans before the great recession?

Bipartisanship on Farm Bill

It’s all too much for the editors of National Review who note that:

Many crop prices are near all-time highs, and if they drop as expected, new loss-protection programs could — likely will — cost billions more than the CBO calculates.

In an even rarer case of bipartisanship the Washington Post editorial board agrees:

Supposedly necessary to secure the nation’s food supply at a time of record farm income and epidemic obesity, this federal largess flows almost regardless of how much money its recipients already have.

The Post then calls on President Obama to use his pen to veto the bill.

More Bipartisan Farm Bill Update:

Bloomberg reports the Senate threw out a requirement that members of Congress would have to publicly report if they receive federally subsidized crop insurance.