Mother Nature found a cruel way to demonstrate the difference between political rhetoric and reality when this summer's record-breaking drought coincided with the writing of a new U.S. Farm Bill.

The House Agriculture Committee's draft 2012 Farm Bill will scrap costly farm subsidies in favor of a federal crop insurance expansion. The change will supposedly build a safety net for farmers in bad years while benefiting taxpayers by reducing federal agriculture expenditures.

The reality is entirely different.