There is no rationalization for providing subsidies to _any_ farmer!

Bush's misguided attempt at energy production, via biofuel, is turning out to be a good thing. By arbitrarily taking so much food out of the world market, he has shown how close the world is to global famine, due to over population. This mini crisis is a harbinger of what will eventually become more common as the third world starts eating more energy intensive foods like meat, alcohol and eggs.

Has liberal Larry ever actually driven across the united States in the hugely unpopulated areas between here and the East? There is plenty of room for growth and farming. The problem is that there isn't enough money to buy the food, or enough farmers to grow more food.

There is plenty of space, money, workers, tools, and technology for growing and harvesting food. Unfortunately there is also too much involvement by a reckless Congress that rewards high tariffs and protectionist policies, that redirects food to biofuels, that pays for nonproduction of food, that restricts drilling for oil in America, and promotes both energy and welfare dependence. We are having food shortages because of Congress. We have housing problems because of Congress. We need Congress to stop "fixing" things. Only citizens can fix things. Congress can't.

The first sentence of the article says it all. "The federal government is working at cross purposes." Our government leaders believe they are the only ones that can save the economy, the school system and just about every other aspect of our lives. But the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and so the government's actions tend to exacerbate the situation. It meddles here, it tinkers there and the next thing you know billions of dollars, confiscated from us, are gone.

The government is supposed to act as the referee not as the players. The problem is we are too impatient to let capitalism work. After government meddling for most of the Twentieth century it would take some time to dismantle the government created problems and also allow the free market time to build the infrastructure to let capitalism function properly. Alas, I fear we don't have the intestinal fortitude for it.

Land is not the limiting factor in population growth, the limiting factors are arable land, energy, water and other scarce commodities. We are currently witnessing what happens when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. We are seeing it in battles over water, and energy. We can patch things up for a while but eventually we will have to pay the piper.

@liberal larry ... if you're so worried about overpopulation then do us all a favor.....

plenty of arable land (just look at how the Salt Lake Valley has changed over the past 150 years), plenty of water (we should just use it more efficiently), plenty of energy (with greater efficiencies every day).

We are a long way from being overpopulated. In fact, many countries are concerned about the problems associated with shrinking populations (see Italy, Japan, etc.)