The Post reports that that Government Accountability Office uncovered $1.1 billion paid out in farm subsidies over seven years to deceased farmers. While it is useful to inform the public about these presumably improper payments, it would have been useful to put this figure in some context.
The payments averaged approximately $160 million a year. This is a tax burden of 52 cents per person per year, or approximately 0.006 percent of total spending. While it is important to expose improper payments of this sort, readers should not be given the impression that they are a major factor in the budget. They are not.
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