Mwangi S. Kimenyi Quotes
Farm subsidies are bribes for votes.
Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Director of the Brookings Institution Africa Growth Initiative, Founding executive director of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, Interview, Foreign Policy, May/June 2011
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
For many nations, it is an important objective to be totally self-sufficient in their food supply—so that they would not have to depend in other nations in what might be a world famine or food supply. For those nations agricultural subsidies are useful if their farmers cannot produce as cheaply and efficiently as other nations do. In the United States, with the most efficient agriculture in the world, subsidies are a waste of public money {633243} and the result of lobbying and special interest pressure and or corruption {633245}.
While this is a common complaint in the American political dialogue at the beginning of the 21st century, it is interesting that this was the conclusion of a foreign political scholar studying that period—one who was generally a great admirer of America.
