For the uninitiated, the Mississippi Christmas Tree (MCT) is an elaborate and carefully designed business structure which is used to clothe a farming operation that seeks to maximize its receipts from certain commodity programs. Federal law limits payments to participants in certain farm...

Subsidized reclamation projects squander valuable capital and environmental resources by benefitting farmers far less than taxpayers pay. Yet, they have made a few irrigators suddenly wealthy. There are several different approaches that could make the system more efficient. One would involve...