Republican who criticizes federal farm subsidies has father-in-law who received them

Paul’s father-in-law received $10,000 in subsidies

FRANKFORT, Ky. — U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s campaign acknowledged Friday that his in-laws had benefited from federal farm subsidies that he has been criticizing in stump speeches.

The revelation brought accusations of hypocrisy from his opponent’s camp.

Paul, a tea party-backed Republican, has been critical of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s farm subsidy program even though his father-in-law received more than $10,000 in payments over 12 years.

Paul has repeatedly pointed to the subsidy program as an example of government waste, saying farmers shouldn’t be paid not to grow crops. He also criticized payments going to the estates of dead farmers.

A database of subsidy payments maintained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based organization that monitors the nation’s agricultural programs, shows Paul’s father-in-law, Hilton Ashby of Russellville, received annual allotments between 1996 and 2007. The amounts ranged from $382 to $996, totaling $10,276. The database also shows a payment of nearly $1,600 in 1995 to the estate of H.T. Ashby, Paul’s late grand-father-in-law.

Campaign manager Jesse Benton acknowledged the payments on Friday, saying Paul’s call to end the subsidy program also applies to relatives.

“This is the type of program we can’t afford,” Benton said. “It applies to friends and relatives as much as anyone else. He wants to stop that program for everybody.”

Paul, a tea party-backed candidate who is running for the seat of retiring Sen. Jim Bunning, was soundly criticized Friday afternoon by Allison Haley, spokeswoman for Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway, for the payments to Ashby.

“Rand Paul favors imposing his risky ideas on everyone but himself,” Haley said.

Haley accused Paul of hypocrisy, saying he has “railed against programs that support our farmers while his family is benefiting directly from the very same programs.”

Ashby didn’t immediately return a telephone call Friday afternoon.

Paul told a group of Kentucky farmers meeting in Louisville on Thursday that the federal payments may need to be cut to reduce the national debt. Conway told the same audience that eliminating the subsidy program, which pumped more than $200 million into the state last year, would hurt farm families.

In an effort to court farmers, an important voting bloc in Kentucky, Paul attended a church picnic earlier this week in western Kentucky, glad-handing with some of the state’s largest growers of corn, soybean and wheat. They encouraged him to change his position on subsidies.

“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Glenn Howell, a Fulton County farmer who tills some 2,700 acres. “We’ve got to have the subsidies, right or wrong.”

Paul, the son of former Republican presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, said he sees Kentucky’s farming regions as must-wins if he is to be successful in November. Paul said needs to break even with Conway in the state’s two largest cities and carry every other region of the state to win the race.