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(Washington, D.C.) The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today strongly condemned the Senate's passage of S. 1731, the Farm Bill.

"CCAGW is disgusted that the Senate passed S. 1731. Like the House-passed farm bill, S. 1731 represents a dramatic backward step in farm policy," CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. "Rather than building on free market reforms begun in the 1996 Farm Bill, both bills continue to subsidize the products that have always been subsidized, restore all subsidies that have ever been eliminated, and also create new subsidies for products that have never been subsidized before."

"With this bill, wool, mohair and honey subsidies, once thought to be eliminated, have risen like a phoenix from the ashes. The sugar program, one of the most costly to both consumers and taxpayers, remains unchanged. Finally, a new $2 billion dairy subsidy program has been added to the Senate bill," Schatz also said.

Like the House bill, S. 1731 adds $73 billion in subsidies to the existing $95 billion 10-year base. This massive increase is unjustified at a time when such funds are not available and more resources are required for enhancing our national security.

"S. 1731 is even worse than the House bill because it front-loads more than 60 percent of these funds in the first five years of the farm bill," Schatz added. "This is really nothing more than a gimmick to increase farm subsidy spending by approximately $20 billion beyond the 65 percent increase already in the bill."

"It's time to put agriculture socialism onto the ash heap of history along with so many other bad ideas," Schatz concluded. "CCAGW encourages President Bush to veto the bloated and wasteful Farm Bill."

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest taxpayer advocacy group with over one million members and supporters nationwide. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.

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