WASHINGTON — The Bush administration wants tax breaks for nearly everyone, but not when it comes to wealthy farmers.

President Bush is asking Congress to halt farm subsidies to anyone making more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income. The current income cap is $2.5 million.

The places with the biggest percentage of wealthy farmers, according to tax returns, are in Washington, D.C., New Jersey and California. That's the conclusion of a Bush administration analysis obtained by The Associated Press.

Those people are most likely to lose farm payments under Bush's proposal.

Lawmakers warn that such a limit might unintentionally hurt honest, hardworking families in rural America.

The Bush analysis, based on IRS data, tells a different story.

"A fair number of these people do live in states like New Jersey, some in Washington, D.C.," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in an interview.

"These are probably investor-owners, people that have a large income and they own a farm somewhere. By any definition, they're doing very well," Johanns said.

Hawai'i ranked 23rd highest with 4.39 percent of its farmers making more than $200,000 in gross adjusted income.

Not everyone at this income level gets farm payments, which the government provides to support farmers' income and keep crop prices steady.

Nationwide, subsidy payments go to fewer than half of all farmers. And the lion's share of payments go only to growers of the five major crops — corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton.

In all, about 38,000 farmers would be cut off, the administration estimates. That includes 25,000 farmers and 13,000 other people who get rental income from farms. More than 2 million people report farm businesses to the IRS.

Critics of farm subsidies agree with Johanns, albeit with harsher words.

"Farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program," said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. "They are promoted as saving small family farmers in a Norman Rockwell vision of the world. The reality is, the majority of farm subsidies go to corporate farms."

Farm-state lawmakers insist that's not the case.

"They're not fat-cat farmers," said Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

A farmer might have to invest $5 million to make a farm operation work, said Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who is also a certified public accountant.

"The amount of money it takes to farm these days, most people have no concept," Peterson said.

"It sounds good when you talk about this number. If it's done wrong, it could have a profoundly negative effect on agriculture in America."

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., contends the $200,000 limit is arbitrary.

"I am concerned that this proposal will most likely not be responsive to individual farming situations when they most need our support," Chambliss said.

Southerners like Chambliss have opposed previous attempts to limit payments because southern farmers who grow cotton and rice would feel limits most keenly. That's because their crops cost more to grow and therefore get higher subsidies.

The administration counters that the income limit is unlikely to hurt farmers who buy a new combine or make other purchases to run their farms.

Adjusted gross income is a figure reached after deducting business expenses. This includes depreciation or write-offs of equipment as well as business insurance.

The income limit is a new approach to an old problem. The ceiling on farm payments is $360,000, but loopholes allow some people to collect millions of dollars above the limit.