Monday, June 13, 2011

Politico's "Errors" and My Jumping the Gun

FarmPolicy links to this Politico story on the outlook for farm programs.  It also links to this ERS graph


From Politico: 
 "At issue is the estimated $15 billion to $20 billion the government spends in subsidies each year. Originally a Depression-era program, farm subsidies have evolved into a complex maze of economic assurances for farmers: direct payments, federal crop insurance programs, counter-cyclical payments (which trigger when commodity prices fall below a certain mandated level) and other programs. "


From ERS: total payments have been below $13 billion for the last 5 years. 


Now Ms. Cogan might be including crop insurance in her definition, though she doesn't say. It would be good if she were including crop insurance, but I suspect it's more likely she's using a figure stuck in her head from earlier years.

[Update:  It should have been obvious from my quote she was including crop insurance as a subsidy.  So: I was wrong and she was right. 


 I emailed her complaining, she responded immediately, very nicely, and I got off my duff and checked the CBO estimates.  Essentially they've upped their estimate from $16.7 to 17.3 billion because increased crop insurance costs offset the decrease in counter-cyclical payments.  ]


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