In many ways, the farm bill up for consideration this year in Congress embodies all that is wrong with American lawmaking. It's a massive piece of legislation, combining unrelated matters to commit the U.S. government to spending mind-bending amounts of money at a single go. Passed roughly every five years, farm bills are less about legislating in any deliberative sense than they are about lawmakers packaging a trillion-plus dollars of goodies and committing taxpayers to fund them for years to come—and then doing it over and over again. "Every five years, Congress passes legislation that sets national agriculture, nutrition, conservation, and forestry policy, commonly referred to as the 'Farm Bill'," the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry blandly notes. "The Committee formally kicked off its process for the 2023 Farm Bill with field hearings in both Michigan and Arkansas in 2022. Hearings continued in November and December of 2022, and will continue throughout the early parts of 2023."
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