More Farm Subsidies Foolishness

Here's something I read online today.  The US is now in the business of subsidizing Brazilian cotton farmers as well as our own.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100412/us_time/08599197896300

Let's see--instead of cutting $147.3 million per year from our own budget and thus helping, however incrementally, to close our yawning deficit, we instead spend an additional $147.3 million per year to effectively buy off Brazil.

That's spending nearly $300 million per year instead of cutting nearly $150 million per year.  That's not something we need to be doing right now.

The article also has the good point that cotton production is rather environmentally taxing.  I'm not some hippie who would rather people suffer than plants, but if our subsidy policy is encouraging irresponsible use of natural resources, that's another reason to get rid of it.