farm bill failure

The inability of Congress to make substantial progress on reforming farm subsidies is a wonderful example of how timorous the Democrat-led Congress has been in the face of a veto from President Bush. The war aside, Congress has more-or-less failed to make any meaningful progress on expanding SCHIP, reducing carbon emissions, and limiting trade distorting agricultural subsidies. They did succeed in expanding the minimum wage to $7.15 per hour by 2009 but scholars and analysts widely agree that this won’t do much to benefit the poor or working class as the main recipients of this increase are either middle-class teenagers or individuals from a family that already has a stable income. The EITC, which Congress has not expanded, is much more effective as an anti-poverty measure.