Further to Dan’s post today, some more depressing news today on the farm bill process. A couple of amendments that would have trimmed some excess fat also failed.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H) has proposed a number of amendments to the farm bill. The two that failed today were designed to strike a couple of almost comic provisions of the farm bill that emerged from the Senate Agriculture Committee. The first, to strike language that establishes a “Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network,” a mental health program for farmers, failed 37–58. The other, to strike a new program to provide subsidies for asparagus producers, failed 39–56. (Roll call records are not yet available)

Now, I am willing to concede that farming might be stressful at times (although Mencken would disagree). I certainly wouldn’t like getting out of bed at dawn to milk cows. And I am sure it is a tough business, rearing asparagus. But I once saw a stockbroker outside the NYSE smoking two cigarettes at once, and looking decidedly harried. And I bet he earned less than some farmers. Where’s his taxpayer-funded “stress assistance network?”

This is a further sign of the truly staggering resistance to reform U.S. agricultural policy. Tom Harkin (D., IA), Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said that the proposed reforms of the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment were “too far too fast.”

Too fast? These programs have been with us for over 70 years, Senator.