That combination of food stamps and farming subsidies is the sort of unholy political deal that makes cutting government spending so challenging. That’s not an accident.
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By 1973, the number of congressional districts dependent on farming were shrinking, but farm bills had grown in cost and frequency,” Ryan Alexander, then-president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, pointed out in 2018 as the debate raged over the last farm bill. “How to maintain support for the shrinking farm constituency? By adding food assistance – at the time, food stamps – to the package. The shotgun marriage of farm aid and food stamps meant rural and urban members of Congress came together to get the farm bill over the finish line.”
That not only means that the farm bill is an unhappy blend of unrelated matters jammed into a single compromise piece of legislation, but that its spending emphasis is not what you might expect.