Reps. Ron Kind and Earl Blumenauer have been at the forefront of efforts to rein in abuses in the farm subsidy system and invest the savings in priorities like conservation, organic agriculture, rural development and smarter biofuels.

Yesterday they wrote a great op-ed in The Hill with eminently sensible ideas for both finding money the farm bill conferees need and addressing reforms that make sense in farm country ("To help advance farm bill, stop subsidizing millionaires").

Congress is overdue for a new farm bill. Thankfully, there is a way out of the budget standoff that has plagued negotiations. By making simple changes to the bill’s most outdated and least justifiable programs, the Conference Committee can free up enough money to fund all the increases in other areas for which our constituents are clamoring. By doing this the right way, this farm bill can be the great conservation bill and healthy food bill of the 21st century.

In February, we outlined 10 simple steps to making our farm programs more fiscally responsible, less market- and trade-distorting, and more reflective of our national priorities. These included:

• Lowering the income limit for receiving government handouts below the $900,000 currently under discussion.
• Adding a strict means test to the direct payment entitlements, which currently are distributed regardless of whether farmers need them or not, or even if they farm at all.
• Putting real caps on the amount of subsidies an individual farmer can receive.

While some have criticized President Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, it seems to us that the farm bill also would be a good place to look.

Let's hope Speaker Pelosi will listen this time. Last summer she engineered the defeat of sensible farm bill reforms at the behest of the subsidy lobby and now she's left with a mess--a bill long overdue, over budget, and veneered with phony reforms that actually cater to the biggest, most prosperous subsidized farms in the country. And the resulting trainwreck has been thoroughly trashed in the media nationwide.

The only thing that could make this worse politically would be a jump in food prices right before elections this fall. . .