Subsides hurt more than help

Kansas City Star: This year, Congress is expected to pass another farm bill, re-authorizing the nation's basic agricultural policies for several years.
The last farm bill heralded a return to business as usual, which in practice meant shoveling money from the Treasury to the nation's largest farmers. About three-quarters of U.S. farm payments go to only 10 percent of the recipients.
The policy of linking subsidies to output is ruinous to the Treasury and encourages gluts, which are then exported. That drives down world prices for basic commodities, making it harder for farmers in poorer countries to survive.
U.S. policy has begun to draw opposition from developing nations. In 2005, Brazil argued that Washington's cotton program was contrary to World Trade Organization rules. Brazil won. Now some poorer countries may be similarly targeting the U.S. rice program.
Washington is hardly the only offender of farm-subsidies. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that in 2005, rich countries doled out 280 billion in subsidies. The European Union was the No. 1 subsidizer, with nearly 134 billion in farm payments.
Washington should reform our farm programs not only for the sake of American taxpayers but because these payments help wreck the sole means of support for thousands of poor-country farmers.
The first step in reform: sever the link between how much wheat or corn a farmer produces and how much that farmer receives from the taxpayer.