THE US Department of Agriculture has been paying millions of dollars in subsidies to wealthy farmers that should not qualify for the government assistance, according to a United States Government Accountability Office report.
The GAO said it found that the USDA had paid out more than US$49 million from 2003 through 2006 to farmers with "an adjusted gross income that exceeded US$2.5 million and derived less than 75 per cent of their income from farming ...."
USDA officials, according to the report, said they just did not have the resources to properly investigate people receiving the payments and were therefore unable to stop the money from going out.
And, if oversight does not improve, there will likely be more farmers collecting subsidies that should not be able to because Congress lowered the eligibility caps earlier this year.
GAO investigators said that "with lower income eligibility caps under the 2008 Farm Bill, the number of individuals whose AGI exceeds the caps will rise, increasing the risk that USDA will make improper payments to more individuals."
President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday highlighted the GAO report findings as an example of "a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end as President."
By Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires