So, money really does grow on farms.

This week, Congress voted to override President Bush’s veto of the Farm Bill, and continue a shameful practice of offering lavish subsidies to anybody who – for the purposes of federal regulation – qualifies as a “farmer.”

Now, President Eisenhower once said, “Farming is easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re 1,000 miles from the corn field.” If the subsidies contained in the Farm Bill only went to agrarians, to support the breadbasket of America, there would be no quibble with it. Except they don’t.

Wealthy farmers, large landowners and major agri-business interests still benefit from taxpayer support, despite skyrocketing food prices and the proven lack of need. The industry is fine without the government’s handouts.

(And quite safe, under the bill. If commodity prices fall, the bill ensures a cost protection windfall of perhaps $16 billion, according to the Washington Post.)

Yet Congress would not move its arms. Just like the agriculture interests it supports, the Farm Bill is larded with enough pork to satiate even their voracious political appetites.

But don’t get us wrong – these chops are appreciated. The Farm Bill contains provisions to close the “Enron loophole” to more closely scrutinize energy markets, and funding for the Northern Border Commission, a regional economic development authority, which will directly impact Androscoggin County.

The commission will split $30 million among northern areas of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

And there are millions for Maine specialty crop farming, Atlantic salmon conservation, greater dairy subsidies and the creation of a “National Aquatic Animal Health Plan.” Billions of dollars for other states are in the Farm Bill, too.

They are all probably worthy programs.

But Congress can’t do good by doing bad.

It is true this legislation has many important provisions. Expanding food stamp eligibility, for example, was critical to combat rising food prices. Yet its drawbacks outweigh its merits, which is why the one person in Washington without an apparent financial stake in the bill, President Bush, vetoed this mess without question.

And why those getting a piece of the action – Congress – easily rejected his rejection.

So the Farm Bill is now law, with billions of dollars in perhaps laudable programs balanced upon disgraceful subsidies to a powerful industry. At least, we can tell ourselves nobody is to blame, we’re all just pigs assembled at the trough, and we all have to eat.

Oink, oink.