Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer didn’t mince words. “The farm bill,” he said recently, “is a mess.”

Indeed it is. In a year when prices for the major grains covered by federal subsidy programs are at record levels, Congress has done next to nothing to reform what amounts to a bloated welfare system for agribusiness.

On Thursday Congress extended the existing law for another week — the fourth such extension as House and Senate negotiators deadlocked over the final text of the bill.

The most important reforms suggested by the administration have received a cold shoulder from lawmakers.

At the top of the list was a proposed reduction in the subsidy cap, currently at a ridiculously high $2.5 million. The administration proposed a cap of $200,000 in adjusted gross income, which would affect only the top 2 percent of earners.

But neither the House nor the Senate versions of the new farm bill offered any real reform in that area. Schafer, in a meeting with The Star’s Editorial Board last week, said the changes proposed by lawmakers were so full of loopholes they amounted to a cap “in name only.”

Another problem is the pick-a-price maneuver, which amounts to a legal scam. Under existing law, farmers can choose a day — and a price — on which to lock in a certain subsidy payment, even if the crop isn’t actually sold at that time.

If the price later rises, they can pick that day to sell and keep the government payment for the earlier dip.

Unfortunately, improvements to nutrition programs such as food stamps are also are tied up in the bill.

Many Americans rely on food stamps and other federal nutrition programs to get them through each week. More than 1 million additional people have enrolled in the food stamp program in just the last year.

It’s important that a farm bill pass soon.
The legislation should include reforms to out-of-control subsidy programs — while making sure that low-income people who qualify for food aid can get it.