USDA Paid Dead Farmers $1.1 Billion
Tuesday, Jul. 24, 2007
By AP/MARY CLARE JALONICK
(WASHINGTON) - The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm
payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period,
congressional investigators say.
The findings by the Government Accountability Office were released
Monday as the House prepared to debate and pass farm legislation this
week that would govern subsidies and the department's programs for the
next five years.
GAO auditors reviewed payments from 1999 through 2005 in the report,
which was requested by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, senior Republican
on the Senate Finance Committee. "It's unconscionable that the
Department of Agriculture would think that a dead person was actively
engaged in the business of farming," said Grassley.
The auditors said they found that the department has not been
conducting the necessary checks to ensure that subsidy payments are
proper.
"USDA has made farm payments to estates more than two years after
recipients died, without determining, as its regulations require,
whether the estates were kept open to receive these payments," their
report said.
Of the identified payments to deceased farmers' estates or businesses,
40 percent went to those who had been dead more than three years, and
19 percent went to those who had been dead for seven or more years.
John Johnson, a deputy administrator for the Farm Service Agency, said
there is no indication that the payments were improper, since some
rules allow estates to continue receiving money after a two-year grace
period. The department is hoping to rely less on self-reporting and is
working with the Social Security Administration to boost its record
keeping, he said.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the
report bolsters the argument there should be lower ceilings and
stricter limits on farm subsidies. "Given extremely tight budget
restraints, it is no longer tolerable to permit billions of dollars in
farm bill payments to go to individuals who in instances don't even
farm or are no longer alive," he said.
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