It's not often we feel compelled to point out flaws in news coverage of the farm bill. But today the Washington Times is reporting a general talking point repeatedly coming from the anti-payment limits crowd, so we'll briefly address it. Here's the Times:

The [Senate Agriculture Committee Farm] bill would cap overall direct subsidies to $100,000 annually for single farmers and $200,000 for husband-and-wife farm households. Married couples who operate farms now are eligible for as much as $360,000 annually.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, have proposed to increase the cap to $250,000 for two-person farms.

I have seen this $100K figure circulate before, but this is the first time I have ever read that Grassley and Dorgan want to raise the cap, which is just beyond ludicrous.

Here's the deal. The Farm Bill includes three main commodity programs that pay farmers- direct, countercyclical, and marketing loans. The Senate Ag Committee Farm Bill does puts a limit of $100K on direct and countercyclical payments to individuals (double for husband-wife).

But it has NO LIMIT AT ALL for marketing loan payments, which, by the way, are the payments that result in multi-million dollar subsidy checks. The claim that there is a $100K limit on farm program payments in the Senate bill is absolutely false- in fact, there is no limit at all.

The Dorgan-Grassley bill caps all three programs for a total of $250K. It is the only proposal with an actual limit.

Maybe the Washington Times should invest in some fact checkers. This is the sort of erroneous reporting that really gets under our skin. A quick phone call to any one of a number of groups interested in the farm bill, or to an actual reporter who covers agriculture issues on a regular basis, would have shown this $100K figure to be completely untrue.