The 2002 farm subsidy bill carried forward an invention of the 'freedom to farm' law of 1996: the provision of fixed, direct payments to subsidy crop farmers regardless of market prices.

Taxpayers spend about $5.2 billion per year on these fixed direct payment rates now. Here is the direct payment national summary information from the EWG Farm Subsidy Database.

Fixed payments are subsidies paid to recipients with qualifying land for no other reason than...the recipients have collected those subsidies in the past (payment formula explained in the jump). There is no requirement to actually farm, and the Washington Post's investigation found, in the first installment of the series, numerous examples of checks being sent to people who don't farm. Direct payments roll out of the treasury no matter what.

Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

An investigation by The Washington Post found that billions of dollars in crop payments were paid out over the past six years, with a good deal of the money going to people who don't farm.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.

We think 2007 is the time to rethink this policy.

It was the doubling of "fixed" payments in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in the face of falling crop prices and protests from subsidy crop farmers, that constituted the abandonment of the 'freedom to farm' deal that had been struck with taxpayers to limit and phase down farm assistance. The resulting, dramatically increased funding level then became the 'baseline' in budget and political terms that the subsidy lobby insisted be enshrined in the 2002 bill--and it was when the White House acquiesced.

Some subsidy lobbyists, notably former Ag Committee Chair Larry Combest, are now bragging that taxpayer costs are 'lower' than the outrageously high levels set in the 2002 farm bill, but the reason is the surge in corn, soybean and wheat prices--not the wisdom or frugality of the subsidy lobby. Maybe that's one reason why Mr. Combest is afraid to accept my invitation to debate farm subsidy issues.

These fixed payments pose less of a challenge to WTO compliance than the price-triggered subsidies (countercyclical payments and various marketing loan payments). But it is hard to defend making payments to some farmers of a few favored crops every year no matter what the market prices might be. Why aren't cattlemen given a direct payment because they've raised cattle for a time? Why aren't peach growers or asparagus producers sent a few thousand dollars a year...simply because they've grown peaches or asparagus before?

It is especially hard to defend automatic payments when market prices are high and bringing subsidy crop farmers strong returns, as they are now for corn, soybeans and wheat.