Government Subsidies Rarely Work Well.

       I suppose you've heard of the Farm Subsidy bill. Congress is working on passage of the bill that's good for five years and totals just short of $1 trillion dollars. That's twelve zeros after that 1. One of the provisions in the bill is for more efficient irrigation equipment to conserve water which is in short supply and has been since before 1966 when it was first included in the Farm Bill.
       So it's free money for farmers to buy better watering equipment. And it works. It must work, because farmers are now planting more acreage and planting more water demanding plants. So the bill that provided the means to conserve water through better, more efficient equipment has caused farmers to use more water than ever before on more land than ever before.
       Well Senator Udall of New Mexico and Rep Blumenauer of Oregon tried to put some changes through the bill, but so far the Senate has passed the bill without those changes and prospects don't look good for the House version either. Which means things will not change. More land will be planted, thirstier plants will be grown and the water tables in the Midwest will fall lower.
       In case you don't know it, for the rest of the country, we'll soon be subsidizing water pipelines to send them more water so they can grow more crops on more land to use up more water. Our water. And knowing the way our government works, that means that you folks up in Maine will be sending your water to Arizona. Folks in Georgia will see their water head to Oregon. Let's hope there isn't a water collision somewhere in Kansas. Not that Kansas wouldn't be pleased to get the water that spills out, but their water is coming from Alaska. California will be shipping theirs in from Hawaii by way of container ships through the Suez Canal.
       Wouldn't it make better sense to help the folks back East to do a little more farming so the folks out in the Midwest can do a little less? It wouldn't take a pipeline to send some more tractors East. That way the Mid-westerners could save more water and the Easterners could keep more of its own water.