Reason's Matt Welch on Farm Subsidies:

More intriguing are the namesakes - and likely family members - of singer John Mellencamp, who co-founded the annual Farm Aid benefit concert 20 years ago because (as he recently told the Washington Post) the government was "running the small family farm...out of business." There are 34 Mellencamps in the Environmental Working Group's database, 12 of whom come from a single 20,000-resident town, Seymour, Indiana, which happens to be John Mellencamp's birthplace.

From 1995 to 2003, Seymour's Mellencamps received a whopping $1,297,247 in subsidies.*

* Matt Welch, "Welfare Queen," Reason (July 2005), 12.