The president spends $8 billion to help cover the higher diesel prices that he caused.
The price of diesel is much higher than it was at the beginning of this year, and despite his shamelessly blaming Ukraine, it’s mostly because of President Trump’s war in Iran. Relying heavily on diesel to operate their equipment, farmers have been squeezed especially hard, risking Republican election losses in states like Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Fortunately, the president can always dump taxpayer money on farmers to help them cope with the problem that he created.
That is exactly what he has done — for the second time this year! Last winter, Trump unilaterally spent $12 billion on payments to farmers to counteract the harms of trade disruptions, which were themselves caused by Trump unilaterally launching a trade war against the entire world. Now, the president is topping farmers off with another $8 billion through his new “Harvest Fuel Relief Program,” announced during a rally in Kansas. (Calling it the “Midterms Vote-Buying Gimmick” wouldn’t have sounded as benevolent.)
With the new program, farmers are set to receive a record-high $55 billion in direct federal payments in 2026, including $14 billion in commodity-support programs and almost $30 billion in ad-hoc disaster relief. The sum would have been $58 billion had Congress instead approved the extra farm spending the Trump administration requested earlier this year. “And when the Republicans win, we will pass even more funding for our farmers,” Trump said during the announcement. “We love our farmers.” Love them with other people’s money, that is.
Genuinely, why even bother asking Congress in the first place? Under an archaic New Deal entity called the Commodity Credit Corporation, the president can borrow up to $30 billion from the Treasury to finance farm payments, and Congress is obligated by law to replenish the account’s “losses,” meaning deliberate handouts, ex post facto. The result is a nearly unrestricted slush fund for agricultural bailouts and payoffs.
Without any vote or debate, tens of billions of dollars are drawn from the public coffers and distributed at the president’s whim. The money is gone before it’s even nominally appropriated, an order inverse to what the Constitution requires. Toss the expense onto the $2 trillion deficit and pay interest on it for the rest of time.
Congress should reform or abolish the slush fund and retake exclusive control of farm subsidies, of course, but it won’t. Why put your vote on spending decisions with price tags and trade-offs when the president can make those calls for you?
This is no way to govern in a republic, where power is supposed to be exercised by the people’s elected representatives. Legislators have surrendered their constitutional duty to control the fisc, and Americans, in the end, will foot the bill.