Lauren Etter from the Wall Street Journal has a fine front page piece today that clearly lays out the narrative of the 2007-2008 farm bill debate. One of the more striking points was the reporting of a dollar figure spent by the farm subsidy lobby to keep status quo subsidy payments in place:

The agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last year, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks spending on lobbying. Much of that was focused on the farm bill.

That's a fairly decent return on investment even if you only consider the retention of direct payments in their current form, projected to pay out $5 billion per year. There are several mentions of reform efforts in the article as well.

To shore up support for the bill, especially among urban lawmakers, Chairman Peterson -- with the speaker's blessing -- made sure more money was added for nutrition and conservation, among other things. A Pelosi spokesman described the House bill as a "good first step toward reforming the farm bill."

Increasing funding for critical nutrition and conservation programs are laudable efforts. Stemming the flow of billions of dollars in taxpayer monies to profitable plantation-scale operations and wealthy absentee landowners, however, is true reform.

Read the whole story here.