John Thune Thanks You

WaPo follows up its series of articles concerning the millions wasted by the Department of Agriculture with an interesting editorial: A QUESTION raised by The Post's recent reports on farm subsidies is this: Why does the nation tolerate this waste? [The federal goverment] gave $400 million worth of powdered milk, which it had bought to support milk prices, to supposedly drought-stricken ranchers -- only to find that ranchers and middlemen sold the milk back onto the world market, driving milk prices down again while clearing a fast profit.

This theater of the absurd reflects more than government incompetence. The Livestock Compensation Program . . . was the result of careful political judgment. It was created by the Bush administration in 2002 to boost John Thune, the Republican Senate candidate in South Dakota. The White House calculation was that Mr. Thune would pick up crucial votes from his state's ranchers if he was seen to have delivered federal pork.

Your tax dollars. At work getting conservative assholes elected to the Senate.