According to http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1284.html , Sam "used to receive" mohair farm subsidies. Perhaps he quit taking them once the word got out. According to http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/med3-d16.shtml , he recieved $97,000 in subsidies over two years. Makes you wonder which other "gentleman farmers" are getting subsidies.

In a February 1996 article in Atlantic Monthly (“Why Americans Hate the Media”), James Fallows noted that ABC's Donaldson announced in 1993 that he wanted to get in touch with the concerns of the average American. Fallows cited Donaldson's comment that “I'm trying to get a little ranching business started in New Mexico,” he said. “I've got five people on the payroll. I'm making out those government forms.” Fallows continued: “Thus he understood the travails of the small businessman and the annoyances of government regulation. Donaldson, whose base pay from ABC is reported to be some $2 million a year, did not point out that his several ranches in New Mexico together covered some 20,000 acres. When doing a segment attacking farm subsidies on Prime Time Live in 1993 he did not point out that ‘those government forms' allowed him to claim nearly $97,000 in sheep and mohair subsidies over two years. William Neuman, a reporter for the New York Post, said that when his photographer tried to take pictures of Donaldson's ranch house, Donaldson had him thrown off his property. (‘In the West trespassing is a serious offense,' Donaldson explained.)”