Obama and the almost 400 other Senators and Congressmen who voted for the bloated, outrageous, wasteful farm bill were wrong, and John McCain got it right. Hell, for that matter, Bush is right to veto it.
*** Update ***
Brooks never claimed Obama voted for the bill, but supported it. I was wrong to imply he voted for it.
Leo
Ugh, I have to agree. Why couldn’t Obama have sat this one out?
redterror
Amen! This thing is a tragedy for everyone except the industrial corn and soybean growers. We have a lot of educating to do.
bernarda
Here is a good example of how U.S. food subsidy programs kill people. In this case Haiti.
“Subsidized US rice began flooding in 30 years ago, so cheap that Haitians began eating it instead of the corn, sweet potatoes, cassava, and domestic rice that had sprouted from plains and mountainsides from the colonial era to the late 1980s.
“Miami rice,” as Haitians call the US import, drove rice farmers out of business and incited a rural exodus that swelled the slums of Port-au-Prince.
Today, more than 70 percent of Haitians live on less than $2 a day, and the US rice that is the staple of their diet has doubled in price in little more than a year. Hungry hordes rioted in the capital last month, leaving at least six dead by the time President Rene Preval restored calm by announcing that foreign aid and subsidies would lower the price of a 110-pound bag of rice to $43 from $51.
But importers and economists warn that those supports are unsustainable and predict further unrest in this poorest country in the Americas when the subsidies run out in late summer and, based on current price trends, the same sack will cost $70.
The answer, experts say, is revitalizing domestic production and returning to more traditional foods.”
Ben
I agree; it’s a terrible bill. On the bright side, this helps sew up Iowa.
jag
Word.
Egilsson
John, this is worth a diary.
Gillespie is a 23 year Army veteran who served in Iraq, and yet Redstate says he’s proof the democrats hate the military, so he’s contemptible.
Up really is down in their world.
Church Lady
Absolutely. For the most part, it’s just another corporate welfare program. But why in the world do the food stamp program and certain nutritional programs fall under the Farm Bill? Just to help jam it through?
Tom Hilton
Hate to say it, but…yeah.
Zifnab
Oh bullshit. Bush isn’t going to veto this bill out of some noble stance on spending limits. He’s going to veto the bill for two reasons: 1) So he can get that food stamp / nutrition insert cut. Can’t have tax payer money going to terrible, horrible, no good, very bad entitlement programs like that. 2) So when the Democrats do cut something out of the bill, he and his GOP buddies can cackle with glee as they paint the entire Dem party as hating poor farmers.
The farm bill has always been a political land mine. You’re handing out billions of dollars to some of the most lightly populated states in the country. The result is that you’ve got a very large number of Senators representing a very small number of people on legislation that ranks right up there with the ’05 Cheney Energy Bill in terms of pork, waste, and kickbacks.
All that said, Midwestern Dems would be committing political suicide by opposing a bill like this in a swing year.
McCain has a free hand. He’s not going to kill this bill with his opposition. He can play “maverick” and talk about fiscal reform, and everyone will nod their heads sagely while ignoring his repeated support of bloated military budgets. And Bush will veto it with all the stridency of a “true fiscal conservative” while his party silently locks hands with Democrats to shovel the bill past.
Republicans stood strong on SCHIP. They stood strong on Stem Cell Research. They stood strong on Iraq. But now, when a truly bad bill comes down the pipe, they put up some election year brough-ha and let the legislation pass anyway.
Bullshit. Any other year – say 2002 – this would sail through a GOP Congress, no problem, and Bush would be all too quick to sign it. This is the most token resistance imaginable because its all for show. If you give McCain or Bush an inch of credit on this issue, you’re just getting fooled again.
Pb
…and I’m sure it’d be way better if Bush managed to get a bill passed that cut out all the provisions for food stamps and school lunch assistance, and kept more farm subsidies for the richest factory farmers?
And incidentally, update your post (and tell Brooks to update his)–according to The New York Times, Obama didn’t vote for it, and for that matter, McCain didn’t even vote against it:
Fuck you, David Brooks. And you too, New York Times, for printing his hackery.
Justin
I agree. And 8 years ago, I would have voted for McCain based on this information.
However, the Republicans had their chance to balance the budget. And they didn’t.
So instead, I’m going to vote for the guy who will try to avoid a war with Iran.
joe
To follow up on bernada’s point, there was actually a proposal to amend the Farm Bill to allow the government to buy foodstuff from local growers when we provide food relief overseas – for example, if there’s a drought in Sudan, buy the grain we provide for the food convoys from nearby countries. Not only would this be cheaper, but more importantly, it would put money into the pockets of local growers and further economic development in those areas.
It was, of course, killed at the behest of the American farm lobby. So now, not only will we continue to spurn those growers, but we will actually undercut their businesses by providing free goods where they might have sold some.
I HATE IT when the libertarians are right!
The Other Steve
Illinois is a huge Agriculture state.
Arizona is not.
How about we look into McCain’s support of subsidized water in Arizona? Did you know Arizona residents pay less for their water consumption than residents of Minnesota, a state which has plentiful fresh water?
Phoenix water rates
For comparison… Roseville, MN water rates. These rates are pretty typical for what we pay throughout the metro area.
John Cole
After eight years of Bush, I will gladly accept his doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons.
Pb
He’s not even doing the right thing, he’s grandstanding–he’s vetoing a bill that has a veto-proof majority. Then he can make up whatever reasons he likes for why he theoretically ‘opposes’ the bill–it doesn’t matter, because he knows it’s getting passed. So. Bush wasting our time and money by vetoing a bill that’s going to get passed = doing the right thing? Please.
John Cole
Fair enough, but you never know what might happen after the veto.
Mary
Obama apparently didn’t vote for the bill — gosh, Brooks getitng a detail wrong! — but he did issue a statement last October in support of it.
Joe Klein already blasted him for his support last week.
The Other Steve
BTW http://www.farmpolicyfacts.org has some more details, and notes that many of the claims against the farm bill are wrong.
This bill includes a number of good things, such as hard caps on subsidies to individuals with non-farm income, and farm-income over a certain amount. This is going to have a HUGE impact, as most of the farm subsides in the past had been going to corporations in Chicago or Los Angeles who ran mega-farms.
Farm subsidies are in the form of minimum price guarantee. They act as a safety net when commodity prices plummet. So it’s not true that as prices go up, the farmers are getting paid doubly. They’re not. If prices go up, less is paid out in subsidies.
I could go on and on. What Bush is really complaining about is that he wanted to cut the food stamps program.
The Grand Panjandrum
The candidates didn’t have to vote for or against. It was a foregone conclusion. Remember the joke about a camel being a horse designed by committee? Well, the Farm Bill is always a camel-like piece of legislation, and it is always a fucking mess that does little for small farmers. But it does have a huge impact on our food supply; and that impact will be destating unless we change what and how we grow our food.
Andrew
What Zifnab said.
Z
The bill was a disgrace. Of course, I don’t expect my candidate to be perfect. I am more libertarian than he is.
Punchy
Poor guy just couldn’t adjust to life outside of prison…
The Other Steve
Again, when are we going to talk about subsidized water in Arizona?
Pb
Either he did claim that, or he’s a huge crap-weasel; note here:
“Obama’s vote” — was he talking about the 2005 energy bill when he said that it’d “help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa“? I don’t think so. But I could picture Brooks trying to use that claim as an out. So my “Fuck you, David Brooks” stands. And so does the one to the NYT — either way, he badly needs a competent editor and a fact-checker.
TenguPhule
One of those words is not like the others.
One of those words does not belong.
Wilfred
Col. Pat Lang smacked Brooks down last week:
Brooks has been gunning for Obama for a while and will continue do so.
sparky
observing that a stopped clock is right without noting the stoppedness just emboldens stopped clocks everywhere.
ThymeZone
Hey, wait a damn minute, trying to raise my water bill?
Why, you ….
Okay, seriously, here’s where a thing like subsidized water prices really hurts: It skews consumption. The way to force water reforms is to price the water realistically. In fact, if we were smart, we’d tax water to add to the pain of buying it and really get people conserving water.
McCain’s slithering around and helping his buddies and his favorite lobbyists hurts everyone in the long run.
The idea of him in the White House is actually scarier to me than another 4 years of Bush. I think McCain is more dangerous than Bush.
ThymeZone
Just curious, but how many of you (us) have ever looked closely at farm bills and farm policy before?
There are several Americas, one of which is Farm America. Do we really know enough about the realities of Farm America to be talking about it?
What is the thinking on this?
Zifnab
I’m immediately suspicious of anything printed by David Brooks. Beyond that, you’ve got me. I know a little about price floors and price ceilings and a little about how subsidies are set. And some general trivia about crop rotation and gardening. But I know precisely diddly squat beyond that.
So it is very possible that a great deal of this bill goes towards productive purposes. It would be nice if our Congresscritters – those not feeding us GOP bullshit – perhaps sought to educate people about the bill before the impending 60 Minutes investigative report. A little extra transparency would do wonders for the legislative process. At the very least, people wouldn’t take a collective shit every time they heard the word “earmark”.
Chuck Butcher
Chuck for…, Obama in Pendleton
Cyrus
Interestingly enough, I’m no expert, but I’m commenting here when I’m supposed to be writing an article for a Vermont newspaper about this very bill. I’m kind of torn — yeah, waste pork bloat farm lobby sucks, I agree with the blogosphere hive mind on that — but I’m reading about several parts of it that really do look like they’d be important for my state, and good or at least harmless overall. And indexing food stamps to inflation seems so basic that I’m surprised (well, not really) that it hasn’t been done before.
I blame the Senate and the Electoral College, which give residents of rural states something like five times the representation of residents of urban states. Iowa wanting ethanol subsidies, for example. This should give you an idea of how basic the problem is. Farm bills will start to look much better after the next constitutional convention.
bernarda
Joe, libertarians are not right. Take the bullshit propaganda by asshole libertarian Penn(of Penn and Teller and CATO Institute). He advocates more selling of American crops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvNopv9Pa8
KRK
People love to bloviate in ignorance about Farm Bills. They’re easy marks. There’s lots to criticize. But the ignorance really does tend to predominate.
They’re not really “Farm Bills,” that’s just a nickname for what are essentially bills authorizing all U.S. Department of Agriculture operations for a set period, usually 5 or 6 years. Every year during that period will have separate appropriations bills in which Congress tweaks things and can adjust funding for favored/disfavored programs, but it’s the authorization bills, aka Farm Bills, that set federal farm, nutrition, and rural policy for the time they’re in effect.
Once you know that, it becomes rather obvious why food stamps and other nutritional programs are in the Farm Bill: because they’re administered by USDA. Similarly, U.S. Forest Service programs are addressed in the Farm Bill, as are Rural Housing programs, financing programs through the Rural Utilities Service, and tons of others, because these are all under the umbrella of USDA.
In 1995, the Republicans had the genius idea of replacing what had up to that point been supply management payments for the major commodities with “decoupled” payments. That is, payments were no longer tied to the price for a given commodity but were instead based on a snapshot of the given farm’s planting practices, with payments for those once-planted crops every year, in decreasing amounts over the 6-year term of that Farm Bill. These “Agriculture Market Transition Payments” would wean farmers off of government payments so that in 2002 the programs could be eliminated. Of course, 2001 rolls around and the lobbyists aren’t about to give up on the payments, so the transition payments are dumped and instead the 2002 Farm Bill adopts a “Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payment Program” under which farmers get paid a “direct payment” no matter what and could also get a “counter-cylcical payment” if the market tanks for their particular crop. I believe the current Farm Bill continues these DCP payments, but I haven’t been able to make myself read that part of the bill yet. [This whole paragraph is my rough recounting of these programs; I don’t have the details down. It’s not my area.]
The great bulk of the money represented by the Farm Bill are these commodity programs. And there’s no question that they’re a big mess. Most farmers agree with that. )Lower caps on eligiblity would be a big step forward, but the cotton lobby, for one, is too powerful.) Land rents skyrocket in certain regions as landlords move in to get their share of these payments, meaning that anyone not growing a commodity crop (e.g., fruits, vegetables, some legumes, nursery crops, seed crops, hay and other forage) starts getting priced out.
People who really want to understand how we got to this point and what can be done should do some reading. There’s plenty of information out there from, for example, progressive farm organizations, sustainable ag organizations, and even ag ecnonomists at many universities.
For reasoned opposition to this Farm Bill that’s actually informed by its contents, a good source is the Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska. For support for this Farm Bill that nonetheless recognizes its deficiences, try the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Jamey
Subsidized water in AZ. Big deal, big schmeal. It’s not like McMaverick’s beer baroness centimillionaire wife* stands to gain from artificially low water prices or anything …
Oh, wait.
*Who, despite what John McCain says, is not a cunt.
D-Chance.
The Messiah transcends voting on bills…
Yes, it’s those damn Jews who are responsible for this farm bill… /rolls eyes.
Phoebe
“imply”?