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losses, which is another way of saying minor dips in expected revenue. This is hardly consistent with the concept of providing a safety net to help farmers when they fall on hard times. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in one of its options to reduce the federal deficit, has once again identified repealing all Title I farm programs, including ARC, PLC, and the federal sugar program.”

Stop paying farmers twice for price and revenue losses during the same year. Farmers can receive support from the ARC or PLC programs and the federal crop insurance program to cover price declines and revenue shortfalls during the same year. Congress should prohibit this duplication by prohibiting farmers from receiving an ARC or PLC payment the same year they receive a crop insurance indemnity.

Reduce the premium subsidy rate for crop insurance. On average, taxpayers cover about 60 percent” of the premium cost for policies purchased in the federal crop insurance program. One of the most widely supported and bipartisan policy reforms is to reduce the premium subsidy that taxpayers are forced to pay.** At a minimum, taxpayers should not pay more than 50 percent of the premium. After all, taxpayers should not have to pay more than the farmers who benefit from the crop insurance policies.

CBO has found that reducing the premium subsidy to 47 percent would save $8.1 billion over 10 years and have little impact on crop insurance participation or on the number of covered acres.*° In that analysis, there would be a reduction in insured acres of just one-half of 1 percent, and

only 1.5 percent of acres would have lower coverage levels. °° This reform

is basically all benefit with little to no cost. In its recently released report identifying options to reduce the federal deficit, CBO found that reducing the premium subsidy to 40 percent would save $20.9 billion over 10 years.”

Beyond these legislative reforms, the next Administration should:

Communicate to Congress the necessity of transparency and a genuine reform process. The White House and the USDA should make it very clear that the farm bill process, including reform of farm subsidies, must be conducted through an open process with time for mark-up and the opportunity for changes to be made outside the Agriculture Committee process.

The farm bill too often is developed behind closed doors and without any chance for real reform. The White House, given the power of the bully pulpit,