AMBER WAVES OF GREEN

[meanwhile, what do we do about developing our own reserves?]

Though last year was one of the best ever for farm incomes -- up 44 percent to $87.5 billion -- farmers are about to score the most lavish subsidies in American history. ... farmers will get about $26 billion over the next five years in subsidies:

• Corn producers will get subsidies of $10.5 billion over five years, which is on top of the deal of a lifetime these farmers were handed when Congress expanded ethanol subsidies.

• The handouts make growing corn so profitable that last year some 15.3 million acres were converted to new corn production, according to the USDA.

The giveaways are so large that the House version is the first farm bill ever that would raise taxes to pay for it -- by $14 billion.

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"It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money."

— Walter E. Williams, Author, Economist and Professor of Economics