Rich Lowry

Abraham Carpenter Jr., a farmer in Grady, Ark., has more insight into human nature than the average sociologist. “Anytime you are going to throw money up in the air,” he told The New York Times, “you are going to have people acting crazy.”

Carpenter is quoted in an astonishing 5,000-word Times expose on the federal government’s wildly profligate program to compensate minority and women farmers for alleged discrimination. The government rigged the game against itself and in favor of anyone claiming taxpayers’ dollars.

The enormous scam was set in motion by a 1997 class-action lawsuit called Pig...