The summer after my first year of college, I took my political passion to the streets and got a job as a door to door fundraiser for various progressive causes. I could write a whole other essay about this, but suffice to say, please be nice to canvassers. We hate us too. Anyway, after a summer of knocking doors, much of my political passion had been replaced for a feverish anger about how much money the government spends on corn.

Do you have any idea how much the government spends on corn? Between 1996 and 2016, the government spent over $21 billion on direct payments to corn farmers. And that was only on direct payments. In total, over ten years, the federal government used $106 billion of our taxes for corn payments. That's around $10 billion a year. On corn.