The Washington-based Center for American Progress wants the U.S. government to quit sending subsidy cheques to people who don’t farm, or might even be dead, and instead redirect the money to rural alternative energy projects.
In a column published on the Center’s website in April, Jake Caldwell, director of policy for agriculture, trade and energy cited a Government Accountability Office report that found the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had paid 69,120 individuals who had been dead at least three years between 1999 and 2005.