Farm groups are alarmed about a recent Congressional Budget Office report that calls for reducing expenditures for federal crop insurance. One farm group leader says the CBO should only be scoring legislation and not commenting on it. However, Environmental Working Group Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Scott Faber says occasionally CBO will issue reports that analyze ways to reduce government spending.
He says the recent CBO report uncovered some staggering statistics regarding some extremely high crop insurance payments.
Faber says the report showed a large cost to taxpayers for reimbursing crop insurance agents.
Faber says clearly farmers need a strong risk management program that provides them a safety net. He also says the CBO report indicated savings could be found if the larger wealthier farmers would share more of the cost of premium subsidies.
