Welfare Queen: farm subsidies for the filthy rich.

• Author: Welch, Matt

On March 23 The Guardian published what had until then been a government secret: which Brits rake in the biggest subsidies from the profligate European Union. Near the top of the list was the queen herself, whose farm in Norfolk received 769,000 [pounds sterling] (approximately $1.3 billion) in 2003-04.

"The Queen is a landowner and a farmer," a royal spokesman told the paper. "She receives subsidy, just as any other farmer would do."

In the United States, it doesn't take a lengthy Freedom of Information Act request to turn up farm subsidy data. You just visit the Environmental Working Group's online database at ewg.org:16080/farm, where you can search largesse by state, county, city, and name.

What can you find there? That a certain R.E. Turner, known to the rest of the world as Ted, received $491,179 in subsidies from 1995 to 2003, broken down into $352,263 for conservation and $138,916 for commodities (wheat, barley, oats), mostly on his huge ranch in Bozeman, Montana. What's more, Turner Enterprises received an additional $206,948 in commodity subsidies for three other properties in the state, bringing the CNN founder's take from Uncle Sam to a minimum of $698,127.

More intriguing are the...