In the must read of the day, David Brooks is right on in his analysis of the Farm Bill and Barack Obama's cynical support of it. Obama was against the Farm Bill before he was for it. This is so good, I will post a big chunk of it:
The $307 billion farm bill that rolled through Congress is a perfect example of the pattern. Farm net income is up 56 percent over the past two years, yet the farm bill plows subsidies into agribusinesses, thoroughbred breeders and the rest.
The growers of nearly every crop will get more money. Farmers in the top 1 percent of earners qualify for federal payments. Under the legislation, the government will buy sugar for roughly twice the world price and then resell it at an 80 percent loss. Parts of the bill that would have protected wetlands and wildlife habitat were deleted or shrunk.
My colleagues on The Times’s editorial page called the bill “disgraceful.” My former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ripped it as a “scam.” Yet such is the logic of collective action; the bill is certain to become law. It passed with 81 votes in the Senate and 318 in the House — enough to override President Bush’s coming veto. Nearly everyone in Congress got something.
The question amid this supposed change election is: Who is going to end this sort of thing?
Barack Obama talks about taking on the special interests. This farm bill would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. But Obama supported the bill, just as he supported the 2005 energy bill that was a Christmas tree for the oil and gas industries.
Obama’s support may help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa. Moreover, it raises questions about how exactly he expects to bring about the change that he promises.
If elected, Obama’s main opposition will not come from Republicans. It will come from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Already, the Democratic machine is reborn. Lobbyists are now giving 60 percent of their dollars to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry and the financial sector all give more money to Democrats than Republicans. If Obama is actually going to bring about change, he’s going to have to ruffle these sorts of alliances. If he can’t do it in an easy case like the farm bill, will he ever?
John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.”
McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It’s between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.
McCain, in an act of political courage we are unlikely to see from Barack Obama, explains his opposition to the Farm Bill here.
I may surprise some people by saying what few presidential candidates would ever be willing to say out loud in farm country: I'd veto the farm bill—a bloated expansion in federal spending that will do more harm than good.
When agricultural commodity prices and exports have reached record highs, we no longer need government-grown farms and mammoth government bureaucracies. As grocery bills soar, food banks go bare and food rationing occurs on a global scale, we must challenge the wisdom of this bill. We must question policies that divert more than 25 percent of corn out of the food supply and into subsidized ethanol production. We must question a supply-control sugar program that costs Americans $2 billion annually in higher sugar prices.
Can we honestly demand fair and free trade from other countries when this bill increases trade distorting payment rates and restores an illegal cotton program? Sen. Barack Obama has raised the rhetoric on fair trade and restoring fiscal discipline, but his support for the farm bill betrays the inconsistency of his position: Cry foul with our trade partners, but break the rules at home.
As they say, read the whole thing.
This is a pattern for Obama. Talk about change, but oppose any real change. Entitlements are crushing the federal budget and dooming future generations, but Obama opposes all but the most minor changes. Energy costs are sucking the money out of family wallets, but Obama proposes no significant change other than the tired old trope of bashing the oil companies. In a desperate move to get the Teamsters' endorsement, Obama favors removing federal oversight of the union even though corruption is still rampant right in Obama's Chicago backyard. Some "change."
But none of this matters. In a new poll Obama is up eight over McCain and the RCP average is 4.5%. Things are so structurally bad for Republicans that it would take a minor miracle for McCain to pull off this win.
If I may draw from the Simpsons monorail song:
Marge: But Mainstreet's still all cracked and broken...
Bart: Sorry mom, the mob has spoken.
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