It appears that the Farm Aid Bill is aiding 'The Farm' in DC"

"Farmers" in Aspen, Colorado, got $278,000, while the fertile plots of New York City were fertilized with $2.8 million, according to a study from OpenTheBooks.

Congress is back at the drawing board, writing an update to the farm bill — though budget watchdogs say there is little chance that lawmakers will rein in the kinds of policies that shelled out $13.2 billion last year, with much of that going to "crop insurance" subsidies.

Top recipients get checks for millions of dollars, with almost 400 farmers hitting the $1 million mark. Pinicon Farms in Iowa topped the list by collecting $9.9 million, followed by the Heard Family Farm in Georgia with $8.9 million and the Harder Farms Partnership in Minnesota with $8.7 million.

At least those are areas Americans usually associate with farming. Not so for hundreds of millions of dollars that flow to urban areas including Chicago, New York and Washington. In 2017 alone, almost $5 million went to people living in America’s wealthiest ZIP codes, OpenTheBooks says.

A dozen members of Congress also end up getting cash from the legislation, the study found.

The top congressional recipient was Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a California Republican who has received $1.27 million in farm subsidies since 2015, and $637,059 in 2017 alone, OpenTheBooks reports. Rep. David G. Valadao, California Republican, took in $50,613 and Sen. Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, received $29,955.

Mr. LaMalfa, a millionaire, is a member of the House Agriculture Committee who has averaged some $87,000 in annual subsidies across two decades. Mr. Valadao is, along with his brothers, a part owner of a dairy farm in California that closed this year after failing to repay some $8.3 million in loans, according to local reports.

Mr. Coburn said it was unconscionable for lawmakers to get such handouts and that he believes it violates congressional ethics for members who set and approve departmental budgets to also get paid through them.

"I brought this up to the ethics committee when I was in Congress, and they just laughed at me," he said.

https://www.openthebooks.com/the_washington_times_wealthy_urbanites_from_hollywood_to_manhattan_cash_in_on_farm_bill/