Good Map

As both a map enthusiast and a non-fan of agricultural subsidies, I really liked this graphic. Each red dot represents the address of a recipient of federal farm subsidies. The big red dots represent people getting over $250,000 a year. Given that this is clearly a map of Manhattan, one can safely assume that that these people are not struggling family farmers. It's a neat illustration of an out-of-whack system. It comes to me via Yuval Levin who has the right position on the issue, but naturally glosses it with a misleading partisan spin:

The farm bill passed by House Democrats in July would continue giving millionaires farm subsidies (setting the income threshold for payments at $1 million a year, and keeping loopholes in place that allow some making much more to qualify). The Bush administration has proposed sharply reducing the income threshold to $200,000 a year and ending many of those loopholes.

The real story with farm legislation, of course, is that bad policy comes from a bipartisan group of farm-state legislators. Back when the Republicans were in the majority and the congress passed a bad farm bill, he was all for it. Now that it's a Democratic congress, he's posturing as in favor of sounder policy. But the real dynamics aren't partisan or even ideological -- it's bipartisan sausage-making at its finest.

Comments

You obviously haven't read the Adam Gopnik piece in the current New Yorker...

Posted by Petey | August 29, 2007 5:37 PM

Dumb question maybe, but are food stamps included in this (technically, they could be considered Ag. Dept. subsidies)? It's hard to tell what this map represents...

Posted by brad plumer | August 29, 2007 5:44 PM

Oops, never mind, here's the full map.

Posted by brad plumer | August 29, 2007 5:46 PM

I emailed Yuval Levin at NRO earlier today about this - he had the same map. When it comes to millionaires fleecing the taxpayers via the farm bill, us San Francisco liberals rule! Check this out from SF Gate:

A prominent San Francisco patron of the arts, Constance Bowles -- heiress of an early California cattle baron, widow of a former director of UC Berkeley's Bancroft library and a resident of Pacific Heights -- was the largest recipient of federal cotton subsidies in the state of California between 2003 and 2005, collecting more than $1.2 million, according to the latest available data.

Posted by pinson | August 29, 2007 5:53 PM

All the cash ain't just going to NYers.

Uncle Sam's writing checks to everybody, it appears.

Posted by JJF | August 29, 2007 5:59 PM

As both a map enthusiast, you're probably already famliar with
strangemaps.com, but for those who aren't, there's the link.

Posted by Sangfroid826 | August 29, 2007 6:19 PM

If only partisan bickering were less prominent in Washington, all policies would pass this efficiently! My vote is for Broder. Actually, I'll write on my ballot the words..."togetherness".

Posted by BC | August 29, 2007 6:55 PM

If you click a circle on that map, it gives up a name and the location of the farm in question.

Seems like an enterprising journalist, perhaps for TNR *wink*, could find out what the deal is with, say: (Big-circle) Sam Lamensdorf, Jr., of Park Ave. & 35th, and his two farms in Issaquena County and Sharkey County, MS.

Anyone capable of living on that corner is almost definitely not in need of a government check, probably so much so as to make useful grist for the liberal mill.

Posted by southpaw | August 29, 2007 7:32 PM

::hums the theme to Green Acres::

Posted by John B. | August 29, 2007 8:01 PM

This seems like it would be very useful for local campaign finance reform activists.

One could do the same thing to show whose donations weighed the most in local elections, especially if the focus was on smaller scales than city-wide positions in a big city.

Groups could demonstrate graphically the common political science reality that concentrations of local campaign contributions by individuals come from just a few neighborhoods. (And the point is not that some neighborhoods are wealthier than others, but that with graphic representations, people can see how that concentration happens with regard to local neighborhood geography.)

Local elections tend -- along with dominant local industries or companies -- to be driven by those most financially interested in growth and where it happens, you may see that graphically.

Posted by El Cid | August 29, 2007 8:32 PM

And to think I walked by all those farms on the Upper East Side today without even noticing them. However, I did see something resembling a hog lagoon in Midtown the other day...If you have more than a few rats in your building, does that mean you're a rancher? I need to get a new hat.

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 29, 2007 8:53 PM

Every righty commentator I know of was against the farm bill that the GOP majority passed. I suppose it's possible that Yuval Levin "was all for it," though; do you have any evidence of that?

Posted by John Tabin | August 29, 2007 9:04 PM

Tree farms in the hamptons.

Posted by jayAckroyd | August 29, 2007 9:44 PM

Um, doesn't that map just show where the farm owners and beneficiaries live, not where the actual farms are? The red dots are beneficiaries; the blue dots are owners. If I click on blue dots, I find credit trusts, ag and distribution companies, etc. I don't think it's too surprising that, say, a credit trust in Manhattan owns a farm in Nebraska, or that some rich beneficiary on the UWS has ties to a farm in NC.

Now, whether farms should be subsidized is a different question altogether, but I don't think finding beneficiaries of farm subsidies the city is as absurd as everyone seems to be assuming it is.

Posted by Peter Bautista | August 29, 2007 11:57 PM

Yeah, really. If the Bush administration was interested in drawing back farm subsidies, why did it sign into law their expansion five years ago?

Posted by Brian | August 30, 2007 12:21 AM

But the real dynamics aren't partisan or even ideological -- it's bipartisan sausage-making at its finest.

But it is both partisan and ideological.

Why should the Democrats go for bipartisan sausage-making when they were shut out when the GOP controlled Congress and moreover when all the sausage will be blamed on the Democrats (and not just in NRO, "even the liberal NPR" has referred to the bill as the Democratic bill)? Politically the Democrats need to shut out the GOP, as they will get the political fall-out if the GOP adds in a bunch o' filler to that sausage.

Of course, then it's to the GOP's advantage to get as much filler in there so they can be seen as bringing home the bacon (sausage? bacon? who says the Israel lobby is too powerful? seems to me there's something not kosher about so much pork ... maybe what we need is a stronger Israeli lobby, not a weaker one ;) ) yet the blame for the bloat will be placed on the Dems. But even if the GOP was in charge they'd have no incentive not to be wasteful -- after all their ideology is that government is inherently wasteful and screws up. When Dems. screw up, it reflects ill on liberalism, because we believe government can do some good things. But when GOoPers screw up, they just prove their own point about government.

So when it comes to bad or wasteful governance, IOKIYAR is not a hypocritical double standard -- it really reflects that liberal ideology would involve a higher standard of governance than conservative ideology does. So in a sense, the media (and not just NRO) is right to go after Dems. and not GOoPers -- after all, GOoPers who are wasteful in government are not being hypocrites while the Democrats who do this sort of thing are.

Posted by DAS | August 30, 2007 10:25 AM

It is, perhaps, appropriate that neither the post nor the comments make any reference to actual farm policy other than to observe that some farm owners live in cities. Considering that American farming is industrial farming I don't see why this should surprise anyone. Do you think factory owners live in factories?

And, of course, there is the popular misconception that farm subsidies are a form of welfare to help struggling family farmers. Get. A. Clue.

The significance of all of this is that some Republicans, along with the largest of our agro-industries, are trying to perform a jujitsu move on farm policy, letting the ignorance of Dems and progressives trick them into signing on for "reforms" that would throw most of our agricultural system into the waiting hands of ConAgra and other large commodity brokers.

The subsidies are mainly intended to prevent brokers from controlling our crops and finances. If you like what's happened with gas prices, stick around and watch what happens to food prices if this "reform" is pushed through.

You would think by now people would realize that if Bush supports it, it probably isn't a good idea.

Posted by serial catowner | August 30, 2007 10:28 AM

Now, whether farms should be subsidized is a different question altogether, but I don't think finding beneficiaries of farm subsidies the city is as absurd as everyone seems to be assuming it is. - Peter Bautista

Maybe not as absurd as people think, but it still argues against farm subsidies when the people receiving them are not Jefferson's yeoman farmers but rather beneficiaries of agribusiness(*). If farm subsidies are to help farmers make a living farming their own farms, then why should they go to rich urbanites? And if not, then what are the subsidies for? Do we really wanna subsidize big business this way?

Also, it is bad politics that farm subsidies are going to city dwellers ... and to the extent that urban/liberal/Democrat are linked together in people's minds, this is an issue the GOP can burnish to boost their populist cred ...

if the Dems. were to have been in front of the problem, they could honestly claim to be in favor of the little guy, but making this sort of thing "bipartisan" means that people will figure that there ain't a dime's worth of difference between Dems. and Republicans. Really, the unwashed middle consists of people who are essentially non-lefty versions of Nadar voters: if they figure the Dems. are even almost as bad as the Republicans, they won't vote for the Dems. Or maybe they'll even vote for the GOP because the GOP is the "moral" party (i.e. the party that says to people "you find gays and abortion icky? well, we think you are right to find them icky, 'cause we believe them to be immoral, even if we engage in those activities ourselves -- our weaknesses just show how pernicious the liberal agenda is").

So that the Dems. even let this sort of bill come out of Congress really undermines the Democratic case ... this is why it is so bad politically.

* one possible way it would make sense for the beneficiaries of farm subsidies to be limousine liberal Manhattanites -- they have these agreements wherein you pay money to help support a farmer or even have a share in the co-op owning the farm, in return for getting a steady supply of wholesome, organic, fresh grown farm products. But I somehow doubt that all those red circles represent dirty f-in' hippy limousine liberals.

Actually, IIRC, while Manhattan is overwhelmingly Democratic, the few Republicans who live there make so much money that they do account for a large part of the money going into the GOP ... perhaps some of these red circles are those people? Maybe the Dems. can capitalize on this:

you, Joe Farmer, ought to know that the people taking your farm subsidies for themselves are rich, coastal elitists and ... Republicans? Yep, you heard that correctly ...

Of course, in order for such an approach to work, we need to make sure much fewer Dems have dirty hands than GOoPers. Remember, IOKIYAR is not hypocrisy here. As I say, we Dems. are tarred as lefties ... well, if we are lefties, why don't we engage in some good ol' fashioned purges to get rid of those Dems. who give the rest of us a bad name (corrupt machine politicians, etc.)?

Posted by DAS | August 30, 2007 10:40 AM

You would think by now people would realize that if Bush supports it, it probably isn't a good idea. - serial catowner

Moreover, if the Dems. do let the "reforms" pass, when they work out as you predict they will, the media, etc. will blame the Dems. for passing such a bad bill. Look at how the media pushed for reforming FISA and then attacked the Dems. for doing so.

OTOH, the Dems. frickin' control Congress. No-one, not even the Bush friendly media, is saying the Democrats have to pass the exact bill the President and lobbyists hand to them. Why don't the Democrats write their own farm reform bill that actually does something important? And when Bush refuses to sign on -- make it his problem that he's against farm reform?

But what are the chances the Dems. will actually do this? They work to give Bush an Iraq bill but they put so many riders on it that Bush had the ready excuse for a veto of "this bill isn't clean -- I'll only sign a clean Iraq bill". They kill their own FISA reform. Etc.

The Dems. need to realize they control Congress, they can set the legislative agenda, etc. So why must we Dems. in the base constantly feel like Mrs. Blackett asking Harry Blackett: "well, why don't you then?"

Posted by DAS | August 30, 2007 10:47 AM

Beautiful post!

Petey

You obviously haven't read the Adam Gopnik piece in the current New Yorker...

I have read many such articles... what is your point? Those small local farmers get NOTHING from the government... and even if - they are rounding errors..

you could grow a few tomatoes locally.. but tomatoes and some greens are NOT your stable? you need grains, fruits, ... there is no room for that in NY...? It might be better to install solar panels on the roves and have greens in our flats instead - better air and psychology?

if you eat meat - where does the feed come from? you need 3-10 times more land, vegetables, water to produce the same amount of amino acids, fats, vitamins from livestock compared to directly harvesting the vegetation.

The point is that we are subsidizing with money the most inefficient, the most environmentally destructive, the most unhealthy kind of agriculture (saturated fats).. and on top of it - we are paying millionaires.

The Republican bill is IMO a joke. It is good that Matthew pointed out that it was them who introduced this anti-conservative market intervention in the first place. I recall their reasoning: Well the EU does the same so...

$200,000 annual income still seems high to deserve additional help from tax payers?

If at least they were organic farmers?

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 30, 2007 1:45 PM

Sometimes theatlantic.com fails the connection, so I won't spend a lot of time on this, but....

It is pointless to talk about farm subsidies unless you know which type of farm subsidy you are talking about.

Most crops are seasonal, so the economic viability of the farmer, family or factory, depends not only on what is grown, but how, when, and where it can be sold. For example, we grow something like ten times as much grain as can be stored in all of our elevators.

Check out your almanac. That's a lot of grain. Compare our exports of grain, corn, and maize to any other thing we export.

I'm not saying the average guy can't figure some of this out. I am saying that most of us haven't.

Posted by serial catowner | August 30, 2007 2:19 PM

"But the real dynamics aren't partisan or even ideological -- it's bipartisan sausage-making at its finest."

Quite. Exactly the reason some of us argue that fewer things should be determined by sausage-making.

Anyone think that transport bills, military funding, education...why, even the mooted health care reforms...might be different?

Posted by Tim Worstall | September 2, 2007 4:17 PM

The Food Stamps program is a separate entitlement program not considered an agricultural subsidy, though overseen by the USDA (and a part of the Farm Bill with all other Federal Nutrition programs.)

Posted by Julie | September 3, 2007 7:45 PM

Unfortunately small community and urban gardeners do not really receive much if any agricultural subsidies. Most subsidies are distributed in Commodity programs supporting, corn, wheat, rice, cotton, and beef and chicken. A small portion go to "specialty" crops like vegetables.
These payments follow acreage, as opposed to being based on revenue, so they go to large industrial operations that it seems are owned from afar if we're to believe this image.

Posted by Julie | September 3, 2007 7:56 PM