The San Francisco Chronicle fronted a hard-hitting story this morning on the sorry state of farm bill politicking in Washington ("Dems work to keep subsidies for agribusiness"). Read the top and you'll want to read the whole damned thing.

As Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton toured the land denouncing special interests, giveaways to the rich, home foreclosures, job losses and a middle-class squeeze, back in Washington House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats met behind closed doors on a plan to raise taxes and cut food stamp money to protect billions of dollars for agribusiness, a sector of the economy that is booming.

Democrats built political support for the farm bills they brought to the House and Senate floors last year the old fashioned way: they bought it. The bills provided modest funding bumps for perennially short-changed food assistance programs for the poorest Americans, and added some money for enormously popular conservation programs that Congress has cut each of the last five years.

But with the Bush veto threat tightening farm bill belts, we're now hearing that "everyone will have to share the pain". Insiders tell EWG that means bait and switch reductions in funding increases that had been approved for conservation and nutrition programs so that Democrats will be able to largely spare farm subsidies from cuts or reforms, as usual. Moreover, a brand new permanent subsidy will be authorized for disaster aid, to the tune of $1 billion or so per year, most of it going to a handful of Great Plains states.

The negotiators agreed Tuesday to find $10 billion in extra money in a last-ditch effort to save the farm bill, once seen as an opportunity to reform commodity programs and divert scarce funds to conservation, nutrition, organic research and California fruit and vegetable growers who are locked out of the Depression-era programs. The money is needed to appease these interests while still maintaining the commodity subsidies. Yet in proposals so far, those areas get trimmed to keep the subsidies flowing.

The subsidies demanded by the farm lobby would help big corn, wheat and soybean growers in areas where income is shattering records, credit is flowing and real estate values soaring.

The USA Today editorial page weighed in on the farm bill debate today with pointed comments on the US government's spending priorities:

Let's see if we've got this right. The U.S. economy is either teetering on the edge of recession or already in one, desperately awaiting a jolt from the $600 stimulus checks that Congress agreed to send out this spring to people who make $75,000 a year or less.

Meanwhile, the nation's farm economy is booming, thanks to spectacular crop prices and land values. But Congress is moving toward sending out billions in subsidies to farmers and big farming businesses for the next five years, no matter how much they make.

Something's out of whack here, though that's hardly news to anyone who's followed the politics of farm subsidies for the past few decades, or even just the past few months.

We've added this editorial and twelve others to our map, bringing the tally to 365 pro-reform editorials in the past 14 months.

EWG released today an interactive map tracking the more than 350 pro-reform Farm Bill editorials published in the past year from across America. The map highlights how the 2007/2008 Farm Bill debate has brought unprecedented attention to -- and criticism of--America’s wasteful, outdated system of farm subsidies. A system that benefits a handful of plantation-scale operations while most ranchers and farmers receive no aid.

“Few issues have garnered as much editorial page criticism of Congress, a body which by and large has acceded to the subsidy lobby’s preferences for unlimited taxpayer support for the largest commercial farming operations in the country,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.

“The map clearly demonstrates how Congress’ unwillingness to take on these special interests has only increased the clamor for change in the nation’s newspapers,” Cook concluded.

Two main themes emerge from these editorials:

- Something must be done to stop the taxpayer-funded giveaways to wealthy individuals and operations that do not need support. Especially when so many other crucial programs such as nutrition and conservation are lacking critical funding.

- Ironically, the Bush Administration comes across as far more progressive and reform minded than the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate when it comes to matters of equity and fairness in subsidy payments. “Change” may be the buzzword of this presidential campaign cycle, but when it comes to the farm bill, Congress is hewing to the flawed, failed policies of the past.

Go Here to view the map and read the full report.

Our friends at the Center for Rural Affairs have released an excellent report today analyzing payment limits and the lack of reform in current proposals. An excerpt:

The findings of this study indicate that eliminating the three entity rule and instituting direct attribution of payments, as proposed by the House and Senate farm bills, would do little to reduce direct payments to the nation’s largest farms. In fact, the House bill would increase payments to the largest farms. Under the Senate bill, the vast majority of farmers currently utilizing the three entity rule to double the nominal payment limit would simply achieve the same result through the spouse rule.

Go here to read the whole report.