Uruguay is following in Brazil's footsteps, announcing July 26 that it will file a WTO complaint against the U.S. over rice subsidies. Increasing international pressure has finally forced Congress to deal with the bloated farm subsidies program, and next month they'll debate whether to cut subsidies or food stamps.
Despite Bush administration support for reduced subsidies, the farm lobby and Southern members of Congress argue that budget cuts should be divided proportionally between farm subsidies, conservation programs and food stamps. That way, the food stamps program will bear more than half the cost, although farm programs didn't take proportional cuts when food stamps lost $28 billion over six years in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.
It's all spelled out in Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.