And in a masterstroke of administrative buffoonery that avoids Congress having to pass any troublesome appropriations, the Bale-Out (get it?) will be magically paid for out of a Depression-era program aimed at providing emergency relief to farmers, which is pretty awesome since Trump created the emergency his own bad self. The Commodity Credit Corporation, part of the Department of Agriculture, is a New Deal agency that allows the executive branch to borrow up to $30 billion for farm aid. The USDA explained in a statement that the spending will go to producers of several key commodities: corn, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, dairy, and hogs.
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Republican lawmakers have, of course, been making Appropriately Concerned noises with their mouth-parts about what a terrible thing this bailout is, because what about the deficit and the debt we’re leaving for their children? Senate Ag Committee chair Pat Roberts, of Kansas, said the bailouts were “Problematic to say the least,” and Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota, said the awful awful subsidies constitute “an additional payment that’s going to be made by the taxpayers,” oh dear.
