Friday, May 23, 2008

Is There a Conservative In The House?

You're probably getting tired of reading my rants against the political class - I'm getting a bit tired of writing them - but the D.C. crowd just provides so much fodder that it's hard to ignore them. I promise I'll get off this kick, and hopefully by the end of the weekend, but for the time being, rant I must.

I mentioned in a post quite some time ago that conservatives no longer have a home in the Republican party. This week bolstered my case beyond dispute. On both the farm bill and the war supplemental bill, the majority of Republicans voted along with the Democrats - the House overriding Bush's veto in the first instance, the Senate passing the bill with veto-proof numbers in the second. Both bills are loaded up with goodies for the folks back home - more money stolen out of my wallet and yours. At least the bulk of the war supplemental was necessary, in order to fund the troops, but the $307 billion farm bill is an utter disgrace. For all those who praise bipartisanship, this is what it looks like in practice - thievery. Give me gridlock and a do-nothing Congress any day - that at least limits the damage. From the Washington Post:


Since the amount of the subsidy for 2009 is tied to recent record prices, farmers could reap a windfall if prices drop suddenly.

"I don't think many people on the House side who voted for the farm bill realized there were $16 billion in potential higher costs in there," said Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Conner. "The budget exposure is tremendous."

A blog item posted Monday by the agricultural magazine Pro Farmer described the new program, known as Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE), as "lucrative beyond expectations," and said it is a "no brainer" for farmers to sign up for it.

The Agriculture Department estimates that subsidy payments to corn farmers alone could reach $10 billion a year if prices -- which have been $5 to $6 a bushel -- were to drop to $3.25 a bushel, a level seen as recently as last year.



Nice industry to be in! How many other industries have such state-mandated guarantees? Prices for your product go up, you make a bundle. Prices for your product go down, you make a bundle. The only people hurt are the American consumer, in the form of higher food prices, and the American taxpayer, who pays for this largess. Oh, right, these people are one and the same - you and me.

I could go on and on as this is only one aspect of this disgraceful piece of legislation. There are plenty of places to look on the Internet if you want to further explore the dirty details of this bill but I'll end by returning to my original point: conservatism is a dead letter on Capital Hill. The Republican party has thrown in the towel and gone native, and the carnage coming their way this November will be well-deserved. They have betrayed the conservative principals on which most of them ran and were elected. Good riddance to them.

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