You’re saying just getting rid of the farm bill, with all its subsidies for agriculture, would hurt urban areas by destroying production? That seems like a real

You’re saying just getting rid of the farm bill, with all its subsidies for agriculture, would hurt urban areas by destroying production? That seems like a real stretch of economic theory, to me. Subsidizing the low-margin producers in certain states and putting up agricultural tariffs like we do is really not benefitting rich urban areas. Consumers in NYC don’t sit around saying, “thank goodness I have this expensive cane sugar and cheap high fructose corn syrup because of the exorbitant tariffs on Brazilian sugar and subsidized crop insurance for corn production!” New Yorkers also don’t get much direct benefit from Conservation Reserve, where farmers are paid to do restoration work on marginal farmland rather than sending the topsoil down the river. Finally, SNAP, which makes up 75% of the cost of the farm bill, last time I checked, is a conditional transfer directly to consumers, so SNAP tax expenditures to agricultural states are feeding poor people in those states, not subsidizing urban consumers in other states. That seems like a fine way to do the accounting to me. I support the conservation bits of the farm bill, and SNAP and Medicaid (which dominate interstate transfer payments), but not because they benefit rich urban states directly; I don’t think they do at all. I just think top soil conservation and providing food and health care to the poor are moral mandates, and I’m philosophically in favor of transfer payments from the rich to the poor.