After a year full of victories for big government legislation in Congress, the forces of statism seemed to have met their Waterloo with the farm/food stamp bill. The more people learned of the profligate food stamp spending and the market distorting, risk-inducing agriculture programs contained in the bill, the more they spoke out against this monstrosity. Speaker Boehner has refused to bring the bill to | Read More »
In recent weeks, we’ve been subjected to mellifluous pandering to our nation’s farmers by liberals in both parties. They admonish us about the need to provide farmers with a “safety net” and to protect them from catastrophic events. To that end, they are pushing a massive $1 trillion Ag subsidy, which happens to contain over $750 billion in food stamp spending. Aside for the fact | Read More »
Dear Speaker Boehner, During every election cycle, virtually every Republican candidate affirms his or her support for limited government, free markets, and balanced budgets. They all tout their conservative credentials on the flashy flag-waving issues of the day in an effort to ingratiate themselves with Republican primary voters. However, it is the “inside baseball” issues such as the farm bill that expose many of them | Read More »
Last week, the House Agriculture Committee marked up the preposterous $957 billion farm/food stamp bill (H.R. 6083). Despite the media reports about severe cuts to the food stamp program, this bill actually locks in the appalling levels of spending established in the Obama-era. In many respects, the committee votes from last week shed light on the problem we have with many red state statists within | Read More »
While we are struggling to repeal the government takeover of healthcare, a bipartisan bicameral group of politicians are further entrenching government control of Agriculture. They are also agreeing to enshrine Obama’s food stamp spending into the welfare system indefinitely. We have witnessed a robust counteroffensive against the farm/food stamp bill among great writers and policy makers in the conservative movement. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many | Read More »
In 1975, Ronald Reagan declared that we need a Republican Party that will raise “a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people.” Almost 40 years later, we’re still struggling to provide that bold contrast. Case in point: the Farm Bill (S. 3240). Several weeks ago, Senate Democrats, with | Read More »
Yesterday, Erick mentioned a revolutionary one-stop website designed to hold Republican House members accountable for their voting records. The Madison Project unveiled ConservativeVotingRecords. Com, which houses a simple yet novel index that compares the voting records to the ideological bent of the member’s district. The results are not pretty. 52 members who hail from solid Republican districts scored 20 points below where they should be | Read More »
Barack Obama and the Democrats have promised to make this election a turning point in the fight to make the rich “pay their fair share” of taxes. They are using biblical innuendo to suggest that it is immoral for the top 1% of earners (who happen to make 17% of nation AGI) to only pay 36.7% of the federal income taxes. This is their hill | Read More »
Here’s a novel idea: let’s stop subsidizing Big Sugar. Maybe if the government wouldn’t intervene in the agriculture sector, inducing sharp increases in the price of commodities, many of the 46 million people on food stamps would be able to afford food. Then again, why would liberal politicians abrogate their source of political power? They stand to benefit from subsidizing rich sugar farmers and keeping | Read More »
There is perhaps nothing as destructive to the free market as the federal government’s stranglehold over the agriculture sector. There is also nothing as detrimental to the GOP’s ability to draw a bold contrast on free markets, dependency, spending, and crony capitalism, as their willingness to support 5-year farm bills. Current farm policy creates inveterate dependency in some of the most conservative corners of the | Read More »
You might have thought that we vanquished Dick Lugar from the levers of power a few weeks ago. But if nothing is done to stop the impending 5-year Farm Bill, he might harm us with his regressive policies long past his time in Washington. Last month, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed a 5-year farm bill that continues to serve as one of the most potent | Read More »
When it comes to free-market fiscal policy, Republicans are always manufacturing excuses to exempt themselves from their own doctrine on numerous issues. There are always excuses why specific industries must be recipients of government interventions. They say that exporters cannot function without the Ex-Im Bank; farmers cannot subsist without government welfare despite record high prices; the financial markets cannot survive without bailouts. The latest exception | Read More »
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