This is rich

Obama has noticed the rich farmers getting government subsidies. Duh! Line by line he's going through the budget. Maybe he'll notice how much of the food support for the "hungry people" is actually welfare for farmers and the food industry?

"President Bush actually sought a $200,000 annual income cap on subsidy payments, but Congress couldn't bring itself to vote on anything below $750,000. And even that got killed by the likes of Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, who as it happens helped Mr. Orszag get his current job running the Congressional Budget Office. The Members ended up passing a $300 billion bill in which nearly every crop, from corn to sugar, won subsidy increases. Mr. Bush vetoed it in May but was overridden.

The vote in the Senate was 82 to 13. Mr. Obama missed the roll call, issuing a campaign statement saying that the bill was "far from perfect" and would have preferred "tighter payment limits." However, he added that "with so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good." And he then went on to rake Mr. Bush and John McCain (who opposed the bill) for "saying no to America's farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people." In other words, given the chance to support cuts in farm subsidies for the rich, Mr. Obama chose instead to attack his Republican opponents for doing precisely that." WSJ Nov. 26

Now that he's going to be president, he'll have to leave that empty suit in the closet and show up for votes.