Now some reaction to what we saw today in the Aberdeen area with Sen. Clinton's visit. First, my unrefined crowd sensor guesses that there were around 1200 people there [note: look above and you'll see how wrong I was when I wrote this]. I'll keep an eye on media reports to see if someone else has a better number. I have no sense as to whether that is a good or bad number. My guess is that an Obama appearance would get more people out. We'll see how many come to Watertown tomorrow for his event.
I found the event a bit subdued. Sen. Clinton's voice is failing her, no doubt caused by heavy campaigning. Also, given the crowd she wanted to stress agriculture issues. She seemed unsure of herself here, not really having a well honed stump speech. Contrast this with her response to the question about veterans I referenced below. Here is something she probably talks about all the time. Her answer was solid, to the point, and informative. I found her very convincing on this issue. There was simply a lack of comfort with agriculture issues.
Sen. Clinton is a progressive Democrat. I am essentially a conservative Republican. So naturally I didn't agree with most of what she said, but let me make a few criticisms. She says that she favors country of origin labeling for foodstuffs and she touted her support for permanent disaster relief in the farm bill. A minor criticism, but here are two issues that John Thune has worked on very hard (as has the rest of our delegation) and it would have been easy to send some bi-partisan love on these issues. She chose not to.
She argued in favor of spending more money to feed the hungry around the world. Of course she failed to note that the farm bill she likes so much has very little money for just that. She also said that ethanol subsidies probably have a "small" impact on food prices. The evidence is otherwise. Also, the heavy subsidization of agriculture by wealthy nations such as the US makes it harder for farmers in poor nations to compete in the world market, making those nations even poorer. Overall, our farm policy helps keep the poor of the world hungry.
Sen. Clinton argues that we must subsidize agriculture as a "safety net" for farmers and rural communities. Yet she wants to stick it to the oil industry. Question: why do the rural communities that depend on the oil industry matter less than rural communities that depend on agriculture? Why is it wrong to subsidize the oil industry, but ok to subsidize big agriculture and the largest private land owner in the United States? One answer is that the farmer feeds the world. Well, the oil fields fuel the world. The answer to my questions are easy. In the context of today's event the answer is because we are us and they are them, meaning we like it when the government give us money by taking it from someone else.
Take a look at the Jones family that hosted the event today. According to the Environmental Working Group farm subsidy data base, Dennis Jones, whose house we were at, has received about $1.1 million in direct payments from the federal government from 1995-2006. I don't know all of the relations, but the three Jones's of Bath, SD (including Dennis) have received a total of $2,854,635 over the same time period. That's your money into their pockets. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but let's be honest about what is going on. Your money is being taken from you to support someone else's way of life. It might be a good life. It might be one that we want to keep. But let's not lie about what we are doing. There is no difference between subsidizing the oil industry and the agriculture industry other than the fact that farmers are popular and oilmen are not. And yes, I have no doubt that due to the huge amounts of money in oil that that industry gets far more money from the government.
Last point. Sen. Clinton rightly pointed out that our Defense Department struggles to get supplies where they are needed. Let me suggest that that is not Bush Administration problem, but a massive bureaucratic problem. She mentioned that most people who are here illegally actually came here legally, but the system lost them. Again, rotten bureaucracy. The VA doesn't treat its clients as well as we'd like. This might be a funding issue, but it is also a bureaucratic issue. So the same government that can't take care of veterans, that can't get supplies to soldiers, and can't keep track of immigrants is going to provide health insurance to 300 million people? I don't think so.
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