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Haley Barbour and the Regressive Economics of Farm Subsidies

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 22nd, 2011 at 09:32 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

Farm subsidies are the most popular form of corporate cronyism among many Republicans. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this regressive form of ‘progressive’ market intervention garners enthusiastic support from Republican presidential contenders, especially preceding the Iowa Caucuses. Haley Barbour is the latest potential presidential candidate to prostrate on the altar of the farm lobby and support the $20 billion fleecing of the taxpayer. Even with the exit of John Thune from the presidential sweepstakes, the farm lobby still boasts many champions of taxpayer handouts among the 2012 hopefuls.

Yesterday, in an interview with the Daily Caller, Barbour offered the following counterintuitive economic justification of government intervention in the food market. Here are some of his greatest hits:

“What we want to have in the United States is abundant food at a responsibly low price. To do that, we have to have an appropriately large supply of agricultural products. When sales volumes are good, prices are reasonable, there shouldn’t be any farm subsidies. But for natural reasons, nature, or what other countries are doing in terms of how they’re handling their markets, sometimes it is appropriate to have farm subsidies.”

“What you want is to have policies that lead to ample supply and prices that yield good prices for the person at the grocery store but profits for the farmers.”

Let’s expound upon Barbour’s economic theory. Barbour opines that government subsidies, most of which go to wealthy farmers, are often indispensable because they increase food supply and lower prices at the grocery store during rough times. Well, why is food inflation dramatically rising, even as farmers continue to receive record levels of subsidies? Indeed every American (at least those who are not on food stamps) is suffering from the lack of “good prices” at the grocery store.

Also, even if there is some superficial short-term benefit from farm subsidies during a crisis, as is the case with most government interventions in the economy, doesn’t he realize that we aren’t experiencing a food crisis? Yet, the inexorable farm lobby has ensured the immutability of the subsidy program even though the farm industry has recovered much quicker from the recession than virtually any other sector of the economy. There is no natural disaster affecting the agriculture sector; there is an unnatural government induced disaster affecting consumers.

The reality is that farm subsidies have always had a long-term inflationary effect by inducing overproduction and incentivizing a lack innovation. In fact, government subsidies and handouts are the primary cause for artificially high costs of such vital needs as health care and energy. Most Republicans have the fortitude to oppose market-distorting price-hiking policies in those sectors. Yet they become the cheerleaders of those policies when they are applied to the agriculture industry.

These policies represent everything that is wrong with progressivism. Farm subsidies and ethanol standards are examples of corporate cronyism, inefficacious market distortions, redistribution of wealth, public sector rent seeking, and regressiveness. They have long historical roots as the antecedent to many New Deal programs. In other words, they are an imprecation to conservatism.

Undoubtedly, farm subsidies present Republicans with a formidable political juggernaut in their pursuit of elected office. Unlike most entitlement programs, these payouts are largely directed towards rural and conservative constituencies. However, at a time when Keynesian government intervention has artificially and gratuitously inflated the price of food and energy, we cannot afford a candidate who supports these regressive repudiations of conservatism.

Let’s find a candidate who would rather lose Iowa but remain committed to prosperity and the free market, and not one who will attenuate his conservatism to indulge special interest groups.

Red Meat Conservative (Cross-posted)

Tags: election 2012, ethanol, Farm Subsidies, Haley Barbour

COMMENTS

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writeblock

We’ve got pols talking about farm subsidies and sucking up to farmers. Why? Because under the present system tiny states like IA and NH can weed out candidates. It gives them tremendous clout–and it’s totally unfair and undemocratic. Politically, it’s also totally insane, given how little these states have to do with any general election and how frequently we come out on the losing end–even if we win.

Barbour–whom I like–may score well with Iowans by sucking up to them this way, but how would he do in PA or OH–states that really matter come November 2012? We’ll never know with the present process.

As things now stand, none of the other states can have the same kind of clout–and if they try, they will be penalized. From March 6 to March 31, states may only schedule primaries if they proportionately allocate delegates. Winner-take-all states and others must wait until April. How fair is that? The money normally dries up after NH. It’s all over by then–and as usual we’ll have our Democrat Lite–a Dole or a McCain or–yes–a Bush. But we won’t have warriors or anybody who can fight hard for what we believe.

Look at the list–two Bushes four times, Nixon three times, McCain, Dole, Ford–is this a list to be proud of? Nary a true conservative among them. Reagan was an accident–and it took him two tries to break through the system. Add to this the way these small states squeeze our candidates so that a strong leader like Barbour is forced to cynically talk about farm subsidies and you’ve got a really destructive process.

gekster

If anything, you are consistant.

Please tell me again how it keeps Rudy out of the Presidency.
The only “true” conservative in the land.
We know it’s not because he is a bad candidate, it’s because the system is rigged against him, isn’t it?

writeblock

The system stinks. You want to argue it doesn’t? Then make a case.

gekster

And the system is just fine.
Just because you think Pennsylvania has no pull in the primaries doesn’t mean the system is broke.
And you keep harping on the same thing.
Rudy is great and if the system was the way you would have it then Rudy and not Obama would be President.
Did I miss anything.

writeblock

IA, NH, NV or SC mattered. But the first three are too small and atypical to be significant and SC is just another red state that’ll vote Republican in 2012 no matter who we nominate. It;’s the Stupid Party’s stupid system. We shouldn’t be giving a bunch of farmers in IA or villagers in NH veto power over who becomes president. It hasn’t worked well historically–and was a disaster last time around.
gekster

not the system.
writeblock

that gave us Nixon, Ford, Dole, the two Bushes and McCain. Where’s the warrior? Where’s the conservative? Why the hell should somebody in IA have clout and I don’t? Inquiring minds want to know. Anybody with an ounce of sense should be able to see it’s not a good system for picking winners. Yeah, George W. won–but barely, both times. He was lucky he ran against two of the worst candidates ever fielded by the left. But we can’t afford to squeak by in 2012–or lose. We need strong candidates–those who can take PA and OH. We’re not gonna do it by allowing a bunch of farmers or villagers the power to decide for the rest of us.
gekster

Lets let the voters in the big cities pick our Presidents.
You won’t have to worry about running any conservatives, because the big cities are all liberal, and will vote that way.
Why should us in the fly over country have ANY say who gets to be President.
Might as well just not vote on national elections anymore.
writeblock

It’s the other 46 states that are getting screwed. I for one am sick of it. It’s a bad system, designed to nominate weak candidates. We can’t afford a business-as-usual primary system this time around. We’re in a civil war–and it’s time we woke up to what that means. A third of the country is dragging us down to socialism–and the other two-thirds is waiting on Iowa and New Hampshire to tell us who will be permitted to lead us. It’ll be another Democrat lite–because that’s what the process is designed to give us.
Bill S

“we can’t afford a system that doesn’t allow my guy to get elected”
powertothepeople

he just keep repeating the same thing day after day, time after time I guess hoping eventually it will sound plausible. Even a poorly trained monkey could see the error of his argument if you want to call what he posts an argument.
writeblock

What I’m not hearing is an answer to my question. Again, why are candidates forced to trek to IA and talk about ethanol when IA doesn’t matter a damn in the general election? One reason and one reason only–the party establishment has given this tiny state–and three others just as irrelevant–the clout to weed out contenders. That’s the kind of influence that’s wholly irrational and undeserved. IA is no bellwether, no battleground, no indicator of anything. But we do it because that’s the way it has always been done and because, more often than not, it gives us a quiet, moderate, polite, gentlemanly candidate–who’ll win if he’s lucky by the skin of his teeth–or lose with gentlemanly class without raising a ruckus. It’s an absurd system. And it’s a totally unreasonable one.
gekster

If you can’t wow em in a small state, how can yo win the big ones.
Is that issue addressing enough.
acat

The first three are tests of organizational ability, and constitution. That is, tests of how much styrofoam-flavored fried chicken the candidates can consume and keep functioning. (I forget who I lifted that from…)

Iowa is a model for the rest of the populist-tinged midwest, and a large number of electoral votes if you include Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Missouri, Arkansas… Similar midwestern-farm culture.

New Hampshire is a model for the financial conservative so-called rock-ribbed conservatives of New England.

South Carolina is a model for the southern religious conservatism.

What’s missing is an early primary in Oregon or Arizona, one of the more libertarian-conservative parts of the country… but I’ll let that one slide. (grin)

Seriously, on one level, you’re right – the system does need to be changed. On another level, though … the system is what it is… and candidates ought to, since it’s been this way for decades, have a strategery for beating it. If they can’t manage that, I don’t see a few big-blue state wins really helping much….

Mew
acat

It’s not just the GOP primary.

All the disadvantages you’re getting incensed over?

They apply to the Dems as well.

Do we really want to put an early primary in a big blue state like New York where they can say “Yeah, Christie won the GOP primary with, like, a third of the votes that Obama got in the Dem primary” …

Just sayin’

Mew
writeblock

The Dems have a lengthier process–and it’s proportional. By the time it got to PA both Hillary and Obama were still slugging it out–right up to the convention–so Pennsylvanians had a voice in the Democrat selection process–which we didn’t have as Republicans. It was virtually over for the GOP after NH. McCain had it sewed up after Crist backed his fellow moderate. It’s the old boy way of doing things in the GOP. McCain was their guy from the get-go, the heir apparent.
acat

The Dems may be proportional, but the early small-state primaries are the same for both parties. And they serve the same purpose – weed out the weak.

Howard Dean is the classic example.

And you’re right, McCain had it sewn up very early … mostly because *nobody* went after the guy hard enough. He was the presumptive nominee before Iowa.

Mew
writeblock

Yeah, we do want to try an early primary in a blue state. Christie won NJ, didn’t he? Rudy could/would have taken NJ imo. Or PA. But we don’t know since he never got to run in those states. But it would have meant the election and a different political landscape than what we’re looking at right now–not to mention two different supreme court justices. It does no good to have a McCain win NH if he can’t take any other state in the NE or mid-Atlantic.
gekster

from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Republican_primary

New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, New York, California, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Arizona, New Jersey, Delaware, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, New Mexico
Non-states: Washington DC, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Virgin Islands, Guam

Geeze, how many of those states he couldn’t win.
And we are talking primaries, right.
gekster

In a crowded primary of several prominent Republicans eying the nomination, moderate former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was the early front runner.[1] However, Governor Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Caucuses as he gained momentum just two months prior to the primary. Moderate U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain won the New Hampshire primary, eventually leading to Giuliani’s fall, as the mayor didn’t win a single primary. McCain ended up winning the nomination after winning most of the primaries against Mike Huckabee and Governor Mitt Romney on Super Tuesday.

note this part, ” eventually leading to Giuliani’s fall, as the mayor didn’t win a single primary”.

If he was so good, why didn’t he win anything.
writeblock

Huckabee won IA. Why should that surprise anybody in a state full of evangelicals. He’s a preacher. Just their kind of guy. How well would he have done in PA? Now compare Rudy. How well would a New Yorker do in IA? Even to ask the question is ridiculous. And he was too much of a class act to even bother paying homage to farmers by supporting ethanol-.So he didn’t bother. Maybe it was a dumb decision–but it was a dumb process. Maybe he ran a lousy campaign–but it was a lousy system. Ask yourself instead–how well would Rudy have done in PA–or OH–or NJ? Very well indeed.

So what have you proven when you say Huck took IA and McCain took NH? Nothing whatsoever–especially since McCain couldn’t win a single blue or purple state. Rudy, on the other hand, was ahead in several blue and purple states. That’s what I’m trying to get across. It was all over by the time we got to those much more important venues You keep saying so and so won IA and NH–as if that proved something. It proved nothing except that the people in those tiny states liked those particular guys for whatever reasons. We’d do better if we studied the entrails of birds to pick out winning contenders.
writeblock

McCain? I rest my case.

As for the rationale that the party’s respecting regional differences–that’s bogus. NH is no more indicative of PA than IA is of AR. It’s a pretense, an assumption that everyone knows is baloney.
How do any of these represent really important battleground states like PA, OH or FL which are true determinants in any general election. They don’t. It’s absurd to imagine they do.
acat

Organizational ability as far as organizing a campaign.

Attracting staff – it’s not just about the money, professional and experienced staffers want to pick a winner, and McCain was the apparent winner very early.

Getting on the ground and meeting and greeting. Eating styrofoam-flavored fried chicken. Flipping flapjacks. McCain can do very well in that kind of situation, and evidently he did. Giuliani .. not so much. Romney also, apparently, not so much.

Oh, and if you loathe it so much, what are you doing about it?

If you want to change it, you’re going to have to get the national committee of both parties to look at changing it .. what’s your plan to do that?

Mew
writeblock

in NJ, he still won’t win there–nor Rudy in IA. That’s just my point–because what’s being tested are cultural differences–and we’re excluding candidates with big appeal in important states–but going ga-ga over candidates who appeal in tiny states. Let the candidates eat flapjacks in OH where it matters. McCain was beloved by townhallers in NH–but what states did he win in the NE? How was NH a harbinger of anything?

A New Yorker can eat all the flapjacks in the world in IA, but it won’t do him a damn bit of good, especially if he’s not pro-ethanol. Let him eat flapjacks in PA or NJ and watch his numbers soar.

Why do you suppose Christie and Brown both asked Giuliani–and no other Republican– to campaign for them when they ran in their states? Because his kind of crowds–urban ethnics, mostly Italian-Americans concentrated in very big blue states–were gung ho for him. Both Brown and Christie won–proving my point that the blue states are penetrable with the right candidates. But they never get a shot at voting in primaries. So we don’t compete in those states.

Yet isn’t this what we should be testing–how well candidates do outside the red state box? Do we always have to win by 500 votes like Bush? or lose big like McCain because we choose candidates that don’t appeal outside the red states? The whole point should be to penetrate the opposition’s strongholds–not just win over our own.
http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

The system is a mess. But the most important problem of the system we didn’t even talk about, and that is the existence of early open primaries.

I have no doubt that McCain was forced on the Republican party last time due to independents and Dem crossovers in the open primaries. In other words the opposition gets to pick our candidate for us.
writeblock

it’s an open invitation for centrists and lefties to pick our candidate. It’s a rough terrain for conservatives. Don’t take my word for it–look at the record. Two conservatives since WWII–Goldwater and Reagan. That’s it. Now ask yourself–how many lefties have the Dems fielded? Truman, Kennedy–maybe Clinton–are the centrist exceptions–all the others were far to the left–FDR, Stevenson, Johnson, Humphrey, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Obama.
acat

That’s only true if we let the front-runner stay in front.

The later, closed primaries are worth significantly more points – as writeblock points out the early ones are small states – so if we don’t like the results we’re seeing, we can unify behind #2 or #3 and push them to the fore.

So, that’s another reason to keep the small states going early, eh?

Mew
writeblock

Check the record. Two conservatives nominated by the GOP since WWII. Nixon three times. The two Bushes four times. Ford. Dole. McCain. The anomaly was Reagan–and he just squeaked by the second time around. It’s a system designed for close elections or for losing elections–not for landslides. Let’s see these guys contending on soil that’s foreign to them–PA and OH and NJ. Not in tiny IA or NH or in a solidly red state like SC. How does that test a candidate? Let’s see how Barbour and Daniels and Palin do in PA where it counts. Talk to the issue. Stop trying to personalize this. I’m trying to wake some of you up around here. The system is not good. It tells us who’s for ethanol and who isn’t–not who can win in 2012 in battleground states. It’s too casual for the times, too ridiculously irrelevant for the kinds of crises we’re facing.
gekster

I have allready showed you Reagan never squeeked by.
No matter how you try, you cannot rewrite history.
Your just grasping at straws.
gekster

If the system had nominated your pet, then it would be the greatest system in the world.
That didn’t happen, so you must trash the system.
Thats all you got.
And it seams it’s all you’ll ever have.
Face it, Rudy the man was a bad candidate, and no matter what the system, he was not, nor will he ever get the nomination, unless Republicans fall into an Obama fetish for him, and that just ain’t gonna happen.

whup….whup….whup….whup….
Come on dang it, get up you lazy horse.
whup….whup….whup….whup….
writeblock

So far all three of you are trying to personalize this as usual. But stick to the issue. Why does a farmer in IA have the kind of clout he has. How does what a candidate thinks about ethanol matter in the scheme of things? What does IA have to tell us about winning in a general election? Nothing, nada. It’s a system being gamed constantly by the left–and we buy into it like lemmings.
gekster

You can’t get over Rudy was a bad candidate, and the people spoke, and picked some one else.
And the system gives more than just one or two states a chance to pick the candidates.
They have to win in more than just NH and Iowa to get the nomination.
It is just that the people picked some one more qualified, in thier eyes, better than the golden boy.

Keep beating that horse.
It just might get up, but it won’t win any elections.
writeblock

Some farmers and villagers spoke. You see, the way it works is that anyone from the NE doesn’t have a prayer since the system makes sure those states come last. So the moderates have pretty much a clear field. Watch Huckabee and Romney shine. They’ll do well in the early states. Neither is a real conservative. Democrats Lite as I say.
writeblock

Yeah, Romney is sorta from the NE–but his roots are elsewhere. He’s got strong Mormon credentials and his dad was governor of MI.
acat

The hair isn’t as good, but he doesn’t have that Romneycare albatross to weasel out of …

Mew

megsmom

President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced farm subsidies in the 1930s, Secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace called them “a temporary solution to deal with an emergency.” That emergency was the collapsing farm incomes that afflicted the 25 percent of the population living on farms.
Today, farmers account for just 1 percent of the population, and farm household incomes are well above the national average.
The main word here is TEMPORARY SOLUTION. Congress is at fault for not repealiing this law years ago. What happened 81 years ago is not needed now, when most farms are run by corporations
megsmom

President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced farm subsidies in the 1930s, Secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace called them “a temporary solution to deal with an emergency.” That emergency was the collapsing farm incomes that afflicted the 25 percent of the population living on farms.
Today, farmers account for just 1 percent of the population, and farm household incomes are well above the national average.
The main word here is TEMPORARY SOLUTION. Congress is at fault for not repealiing this law years ago. What happened 81 years ago is not needed now, when most farms are run by corporations

thego

Am I wrong?

I thought that when the gov’t subsidizes smething, it raises the price that it would normally receive in the market otherwise. I thought they guarantee a minimum price…my Eco 101 is a little rusty…..

http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

in the long run. It is no different than energy, health care, or any other product or service that the gov’t tinkers with. It is so tone deaf for a politician to be saying that at a time when food commodities are so high that they are causing riots across the world.

Farm subsidies are sooooo 1930′s.
aesthete

by “raise prices”. The effect of a subsidy is ambiguous in the short term and tends towards lowering prices and raising supply in the mid term, but the long term effects are difficult to ascertain without knowing the regulatory and corporate structure. The larger problems are the following: a) the dead weight loss to society, and b) the distortion of the market price system (which makes it difficult for firms in the market to adequately supply their goods). Both a and b outweigh whatever good may be caused by a subsidy in general; there are a few exceptions, but the agriculture market is not one of them.

aesthete

in the US attempt to *raise* the price of goods, not lower them, under the mistaken notion that farmers could not live on the proceeds of lower-priced goods — an entirely fallacious assumption.

thego

So basically, if the gov’t thinks that farmers will yeild too little from lets say $1 a pound of some farm good, they subsidize the farmer 50 cents per pound, and the farmer then gets 1.50 per pound….

Am I correct, or do i need a refersher course?

aesthete

As is the case with the majority of government intervention in the economy, the ag support system is a set of Rube Goldberg-like schemes that keep farm good prices artificially high. They don’t so much subsidize the growing of food; that’s more a Europe thing.
mvjim

Aesthete, right on! Quoting founding fathers strengthens the argument.
But to me we need to start small and build from it. We need to start with the “corn as fuel” subsidy. This is a big reason for skyrocketing food prices. Corn oil is useful in scores of products, and if it’s getting thrown into our gasoline as well it’s no wonder that food prices are rising. If ethanol is good in our fuel, let the market show the way. We don’t need it subsidized!

http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

Either way, the timing is the worst possible. The AG industry is one of the strongest in this horrible economy. As the food commodities continue to soar we need to wean these special interest off the new deal subsidies instead of increasing them.

Ethanol subsidies need to be eliminated altogether. The government subsidizes its production, protects it with tariffs and mandates that we must use it. Last week, the Republicans struck down an EPA attempt to raise the ethanol standards in cars from 10% to 15% by administrative fiat.

aesthete

It’s bad economics, bad policy, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

Flagstaff

a candidate who proves that he would try to eliminate ALL subsidies. Nobody in government is smarter than the market, and subsidies subvert the market. Dislocations, as you say.

Further, most subsidies go to the wrong things anyway, such as “green” energy. Fact is, nobody knows what “green” energy is in the first place. Subsidies are awarded for political benefit, not for public benefit.

writeblock

farm subsidies and ethanol. Iowa’s totally irrelevant and so is NH. Neither tells us anything about who can win in 2012. But that’s what we’re stuck with. Given this scenario, I can pretty well predict the rest: we’ll end up with another loser unless there’s a major rebellion–and there should be.

gekster

I’ll get the torches.

Scope

A large portion of the subsidies goes to the large ethanol corn farmers like Archer Daniels. I remember when ethanol corn started being subsidized, the world food prices shot up, as corn is a part of so many of our people and animal food products. If I am not mistaken that was also at the same time period that gas was at $4 per gallon, a double whammy. At one time we also payed farmers to not grow crops on their farms so as to keep the price per pound at a profitable level for the few other farmers who were also growing that crop.

aesthete

At one point during the New Deal era, farmers’ crops in good years were burned to keep them from getting to market and lowering the price of crops.
faceconsequences

ADM does not produce ethonal in any form right? ADM is a purchaser of grains, mostly soybeans, that either uses the grains to make feed products, or sells them to other companies that use them for various purposes. No farm subsidies go to them.

Nearly all of the research out there shows that corn based ethanol had very little impact on the rise of the price of corn. Food manufactors found it a convient scapegoat to blame for the increase in food prices, however, they recorded record profits at that time.

The set-a-side program was last used in the 80′s, when high interest rates, 2 major drought years and low prices drove many farmers out of business.

writeblock

The country’s on fire and we’ve got conservatives on this thread talking about farm subsidies and ethanol. They should be wondering why these farmers are so self-important that the rest of us have to kow-tow to them to get nominated. By what divine right does somebody in Iowa have clout and somebody in OH doesn’t? How does that make sense–if OH is a swing state and IA means nothing at all in a general election?

powertothepeople

not all farmers are on government ‘welfare”. many are hard working conservative folks, and your constant degrading of these people has worn thin. From reading your nonsense time after time, you are really in no position to knock another person much less an entire group of people. Get your own house in order before you trash a large portion of this country who by the way are quite good people. Or at least be man enough to find a farmer and trash them to their face.

writeblock

I’m asking why farmers in IA have the clout the rest of us are denied. That’s not attacking farmers per se. I have no problem with farmers in other states. But I resent the farmers of IA telling me who I can and cannot have running for president. I’m attacking an unfair and disastrous system that’s designed to eliminate our strongest contenders. We should be asking Barbour how well he’d do in PA or OH–those are swing states that matter, not tiny IA. But true to form, he’s out there talking about farm subsidies, kow-towing as best he can. Is this any way to pick a president at this juncture in our nation’s history, when we’re on the cusp of disaster?

powertothepeople

when did the republican party make Iowa a win takes all state. Last time I checked in order to win the nomination, a candidate had to win a certain amount of votes which took winning enough states to garner the required amount of votes from the delegates. And last time I checked, winning SC, NH, IA, FL, were not enough to take the nomination. In fact, last time I checked, it took much more than could be taken from those states alone.

PS Rudy was getting whooped in almost every state even prior to the Jan 3rd first caucus and was even getting beat in his own state. Please inform us how moving any state or all states to any date you want would have changed that fact. If you want to make a more viable argument as to what your dream guy lost, explain to us why out of all the candidates, he was the only one who was losing in his own home state. If they could not stand him, considering all the god like perfect things he blessed the state with, how was he going to win in a majority of other states who did not care about his cutesy 9-11 lines.

writeblock

The money. It dries up after NH. Candidates put oodles of cash into the early primaries when media interest is red hot. They’re tapped out by the end and that;s what’s decisive. By the time it gets to states that matter, it’s all over. It’s a weeding-out process–and deliberately designed to do that. Which is what’s so unfair–and politically ridiculous since a candidate who can take OH can be zonked in IA or NH. So tell me–what gives IA and NH that kind of clout–other than the fact that that’s how it’s always been done? By what logic? It has absolutely nothing to do with winning a general election–and tends to pick weak candidates. It has us spinning our wheels in states that don’t matter–which is madness.
powertothepeople

you have no clue about the things you spew, you are way too ready to conveniently refuse to look at clear factual answers then claim no one is answering you, and you are more than ready to continue repeating this moronic argument day after day after day. You threadjack constantly, and while you did not come out this time with the name of Rudy, he is your driving force.

I will not beat my head against the wall forever. I do not believe you to be stupid, but it would be hard to argue that fact with anyone else. I do believe you to be a child either in mind or in age (under 25) who is unable to admit stupid is stupid just because they are the ones holding the “stupid” bag. So I am done with you, placing your in HINZ land, and do so because of the fact you are not stupid, but have fooled the world that you are. Go beat this drum with someone else, I have no time for fools or foolish debates.
writeblock

You seem content with the system. But it’s designed to result in either tight or losing elections–just check the record since WWII. Tell me how I’m wrong about this–don’t psychoanalyze my motives, etc.
powertothepeople

many times about how wrong you are, how ignorant your argument is, you simply want to act as if the hands over your ears actually muffle the sound. Just because you are unable to or unwilling to listen, does not mean you have any ground to stand on to keep telling us to show you where you are wrong.

And Gekster has shown you numerous times you are wrong when you claim NH and IA kill candidates. But again, you chose to ignore.

You may think you are the smartest apple in the bunch, but you are sadly mistaken. And you may feel we are all morons, but again, it is not us who need to carry that title.

And now, although I broke the HINZ rule just because your argument merits absolute contempt, I am now reminding myself of the rule and why it so applies to you.
writeblock

but you’re dying to change the subject so you bring him up. I can understand why–you don’t have an answer. And by the way, I don’t consider winning IA or NV or NH or SC relevant in any way politically as far as a general election goes. Apples and oranges. A candidate can take the early primary states by storm–and still be a lousy candidate in the general election–and vice versa. That’s why it’s such a dumb system. Show me a candidate who’s strong in a battleground state, not in IA. I don’t really care how anyone does in that state–it’s not relevant in a general election. .
writeblock

Why do conservatives on this site continue to support a system that continues to produce weak candidates–non-conservative ones at that. Look what it’s doing to Barbour. He’s got to violate his own principles in order to appeal to Iowans. It’s par for the course. Rudy wouldn’t–he’s got too much integrity. Romney could and does–routinely. But the process demands this kind of sucking up. The end result is a watered-down candidate. Reagan had a tough time of it. You can see why. Just look at how Barbour’s playing the game.

spinoneone

Not only do we provide a subsidy to grow corn as a food and feed product, we triple the ante by giving a subsidy for growing corn for ethanol and high fructose corn syrup, and we impose a high tariff on foreign sugar to make it profitable to produce the high fructose corn syrup and raise sugar beets. The cost of sugar in the U.S. is approximately double the world price. Oh, and did I mention that the tariff on foreign ethanol is 54 cents/gallon? Direct and indirect farm subsidies/supports distort the market and cost the taxpayer tons of money.

faceconsequences

You have no idea how farm programs work or where the money goes.

The tarrif on foreign ethanol is to keep from subsidizing for ethanol. All ethanol blended with gasoline in the U.S. qualifies for the blenders’ credit, no matter the country of origin of the fuel ethanol. To offset this fact and to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not invested to support foreign ethanol production, U.S. ethanol imports from non-Caribbean Basin countries are subject to a 54 cent per gallon secondary tariff.

zenarcade

I’m a liberal visitor who tends to come to Redstate to hear out the other perspective. Dumping farm subsidies, however, is something I agree wholeheartedly with. Believe it or not, the budget Obama submitted for next year *does* make a substantial cut in farm subsidies (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/14/business/la-fi-farm-subsidy-cut-20110214). Obviously, it’s much easier for him now that the Iowa caucuses are in his past. He’s tried it in years past as well, but the Congress put it right back for FY 2010, and FY 2011, of course, still remains a question mark.

As far as the nominating process starting in Iowa, I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. I was supportive of Michigan and Florida trying to jump the line with the Dem primaries in ”08 despite the ensuing mess. Unfortunately, that situation has only led to further entrenchment of the Iowa and NH model in reaction, at least in the Democratic party. Personally, I’d like to see a system where the order of the states is rotated, or otherwise doesn’t privilege the same two states in setting the precedent for presidential primaries.
Adjoran

95% of farm subsidies go either to big corporations like ADM or to large farming operations with annual profits over $500,000 – only a tiny portion goes to small “family farmers.”

They did make sense in the Depression when most of the food supply came from small farmers and falling prices were running them into bankruptcy. They no longer make any sense at all, except as income transfers from taxpayers to private pockets.

If we approve subsidies for our friends and only oppose them for our foes, we are just like the Democrats with a different set of beneficiaries.

Conservatives should respect and foster free markets and oppose unnecessary regulation and subsidies.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

subsidies and/or actually voted against them?

http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

Here is the house roll call for the 2008 farm bill. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll346.xml

Both Cantor and Boehnor opposed it.

silkywiley

and then I called my new conservative senator and told him not to vote for the farm subsidy.

Thanks for the link
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

thanks for that link bro

Scope

write a letter to Reid to not stop the ethanol subsidies. I thought they agreed to keep them. Thune I believe was one of them.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

He showed his true ignorance. There is absolutely nothing good about the interference in food markets by the government.

Farmers already have a market called the commodities exchange where they can protect themselves from a disastrous crop. Other than that, farmers should not get so much into debt. We lost many small farms to big agribusiness during a time of government intervention.

Why? Because the big producers were better able to utilize the subsidies, and the small farmers were encouraged by the government to use too much debt.

Scope

Not long ago we read that he was a lobbyist for the Mexican Government to not deport illegals, and to protect them. He also called for a “truce” on social issues. We had the dust up about his statements regarding the civil rights era in his state. There were allegations of his colluding to get Preibus elected as the new RNC head, and to get his nephew Henry Barbour a job with the RNC. I suspect there will be more.

cowdoc

writeblock have you ever been to Iowa. How much do you know about the caucus system. It would apperar from your rant very little. You seem to be an angry, angry person. Last I checked the US was a republic meaning that every individual and state is important to the whole. It seems that your anger is that your state is not early on in the nomination process.

Farm subsidies are a horrible gov’t program, but don’t fall into the MSM lie that they all go to big corporations (ADM). Most subsidies right or wrong go to indivduals with real names.

silkywiley

There is a government website, that I check out years ago that lists by state and county, the names of recipients and the amount they recieved.

I showed it to my dad and a bunch of his moring coffee buddies were getting checks. He and I never talked about it again.

Still why should Barney & Bill leave a pasture fallow and get a check? My dad was not going to do that just on the basis of character. Why were these people getting a government check?

The ethanol is a particularly evil market manipulation.

I pray someone will clean house, As Tom Coburn said, spending will be cut either voluntarily or the government will be forced by the foreign bond holders.
They are flexing their muscle with us now.

silkywiley

I haven’t read all the posts, but will throw this in. The nominating process of the Republicans has produced loser after loser.

There is no input from the reliably conservative West. Time after time, we have had to hold our nose and vote for the R. It is just getting too tiresome. Haley Barbour stepped on it twice now. He’s a good old boy, but unelectable. Guilliani is a New York former DA with a whole history of bad decisions. Can you see his latest hoo-aloo-a, as first lady? He threw his entire family under the bus. Won’t fly out here where family is survival and sacrosanct. Guilliani is another pipe dream of the east coast. We are tired of voting for the foregone losers selected from the East. You lose 2012, and a whole lot of conservatives will withdraw from poliltics, politics are seen as corrupt and corrupting. So get your act together and nominate a winner.

Unless you pull someone young and attractive, energetic and western, such as Jon Huntsman out of the pack, you can bend your knee again to Obama and all the world criminal class that he bows to.

Someone has to break the rules and tell Iowa farmers no. NO! NO Now! Or you are going to lose the country to socialism for the next 70 years.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

You’re kidding, right? A former Obama administration official?

silkywiley

No, I’m not kidding. He served the USA, not just the Obama administration, and that will be a plus with independents. As a Republican Governor he was able to work with the Democrats and had a harmonious state which is still the most fiscally well run state in the country.

He has an attractive personal narrative, he has two adopted children, one from China, one from India, and four or five children with his wife, a lovely woman. He is young, he has broad appeal.

I believe that he has purchased a house in Washington recently and a committee has formed for his election. Look for him to jump in May or he will run for Senate against Hatch in the primary. The party better find someone who appeals to the vast center right of the country and to young people, or forget it. Who else do you have? Palin is destroyed by the media, Huckabee is not the boy and everyone else is an old party hack. You better find someone with charisma.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

We call that a tell.

silkywiley

What is a “tell”

My reference to “You” is my understanding the Red State and the posters here are pretty much conservative and republican insider reliables. With so much admiration for Gulliani, I would expect there are a lot of east coasters on here. You have the advantage in the nomination process. So yes “You”

I am conservative, but I don’t believe we should all fall on our sword for whoever the republicans put up. I donate money to candidates I can believe in, I actively campaign for candidates I can believe in. I just go in and vote R for the McCains and Doles and even the Bushes. I think I am pretty much the representative conservative who is not an insider. After we lose the leadership of the presidency, I pretty much focus on how to survive in the system that the demos set up.

If Obama wins again and the republicans are able to hold the house and pick up the senate, we will have a gridlock government for four years that is better than what Pelosi and Reid have done to the country. If you don’t win the presidency, you won’t be able to undo Obamacare, and that is sorrow for this country. So run an electable candidate.

streiff

Mitt Romney.

silkywiley

I don’t know if Mitt Romney can win. I have a hard time with his Romneycare. I was all gung ho for George Bush until he gave perscription medicare to the elderly. That pretty much took the wind out of my sails. After that I realized that Bush never saw a spending bill that he didn’t like. He’s no conservative. When he signed the TARPP he went home with only 30% of the country still in his column. As a retired investment banker, I knew that there were any number of solutions to the socalled banking crisis. Before you spend nearly a trillion dollars without hearings or testimony of experts or deliberation in the country, you should ask at least three questions.

What proof do you have of what you are proporting?
What other solutions are there?
What will it cost and will it cost more than if you do nothing?

Bush still defends his TARPP. He lost me, it was bull.

I am familiar with Mormons so I understand Romney’s sort of plastic facade, but I don’t know if the whole country would get on board.

As I previously stated, I am going to vote for the Republican in the coming election, but that is just me, I have voted for the lesser of two evils in the past.
a whole lot of young people and independents I know are likely unmoved to do that and unmoved by Romney. Still he is probably better than most of the field.

chihank

I don’t get why Mormons hold Romney in such high regard. Romney is a phony who flip flops on issues. Hukabee said it best about Mittens, “Mitt Romney is the canddiate of change; He changes his position every 5 weeks.”

Yet in Utah, Romney polls higher than Huntsman in the 2012 primay polls. Huntsman maybe a bit RINOish for my tastes, but I trust him more than Romney.

silkywiley

I agree better Huntsman than Romney. Huntsman is a Rino, but a fiscal conservative. He also tends to take across the board solutions, where many of the repubs want to tinker with various constituencies, thereby upping their payola and enraging the conservatives. If you do an across the board % cut in government, the agencies know where the fat is buried and you will not lose in services. We now have Cantor and a bunch trying to make hay out of the cutting process. Talk about changing positions.

The government and politicals have a secret belief, they keep hidden. They believe that if they raise taxes and grow government, the private sector, small business, being the creative little characters that they are will adjust and find a way to pull the wagon. Big business is crony capitalism and they will always buy off the politicals.

The problem with the true believers, like FDR and Obama, is that they declare war on the working populace and particularly business. Keynes told FDR to put the business men in the yoke and make them pull the society that FDR wanted to create. Backfired. The wealthy closed up their estates, and took a ten year world tour, hoarded their wealth and refused to invest, they didn’t come home until war broke out in Europe. Everyone hoarded.

Obama has declared war on the small businessman. The wealthy have already jumped ship and started moving their capital in 2006 when they saw the writing on the wall. Now even the commodities market is moving to Australia and the Germans are buying the sickly New York Stock Market.
See a trend here?

So long as Obama and his cronies and his classwarfare is in this country, the economy will not thrive, because the producers will not participate with a government they do not trust. They will protect what they have and stand pat. It is survival.

Rinos seem to be able to raise taxes and still have the cooperation of the producers, because they have a cautious trust in this type of politician, Rino are seen as pragmatic, the true believers like Obama will never have a thriving economy. Just check out history, Carter squawled and hissed and he couldn’t get any cooperation in the country, same for Obama.

unclefred

So 30 or so years ago, the primaries were all strung out. Iowa and NH kicked it off then the various states held theirs. Typically we might not have a candidate nailed down until late summer? I’m speaking from memory here, but I recollect a couple of election cycles where a late comer kept things in doubt and made it a fight on the convention floor. I remember back in the sixties when tying up the nomination votes was a process that was in flux beyond the first floor vote.

Primaries were largely about reducing the power of the “smoke filled rooms” where party power players would hand the party a nominee. We can debate the success of primaries in doing that, but they exist to give common folks a piece of the process.

Iowa and NH served an interesting purpose. They were small enough to require retail politics. TV ads aren’t enough. If a candidate wants to win they have to meet people. Not just party activists, they have to meet every day people. In the seventies and eighties the primaries were strung out enough that someone could win big in Iowa and NH and then fade into oblivion. Equally you could lose big and still regain you momentum and win the nomination.

The news cycle and the buzz induced states to move their primaries earlier. Super Tuesday lumped enough states early enough that it became front loaded. Other states packed in right behind. The issue is not that two small states are first. The issues is that the process is so front loaded, that in the large states voter selection comes down to TV ads, and media manipulation.

Now we hear that we should adopt a system like some in Europe where the entire campaign process is packed into a few weeks. This would make the media impact even larger.

Seems like we are going about this all wrong. We need to spread the nomination process out over a longer period. It wouldn’t hurt if people didn’t view it like a horse race where everyone looks to see who is ahead at the first turn, and changes their bet. Electing a president is a pretty important task. We are living with an example of what happens when we really get it wrong.

Iowa and NH are the last places where a media mage doesn’t cut it. They are the last places, where regular folks can ask an embarrassing question that reveals something important about a prospective candidate. I’ve never set foot in Iowa, but I moved to NH from a large midwestern state more than 30 years ago. Despite the activists, and the efforts of the parties to screen those that attend a candidate’s appearances, the common folks still get in and ask those pesky questions. I’ve gone to some of those meetings over the years, and even asked a couple of pesky questions. In addition to the events that are covered by the media, many of the candidates end up at peoples homes for dinner, or a gathering. Not a $200 a plate deal for movers and shakers, but an event where people invite their friends and neighbors over to meet these people.

Is it important to have a process where a group of common largely non-political folks have the chance to personally vet presidential candidates? When I lived in the midwest, I would have said no. Having seen it first hand my opinion has changed. Just the fact that the candidate HATE campaigning in the two states, might suggest that it has value.

You may want to consider that question before you toss the baby out with the bath water.

RS

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