beltway backlash on farm states pork

[Eubulides <paraconsistent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

washingtonpost.com
Tired of Plain Greed And Subsidies
By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page E01

A message to my fellow Americans who chose to live where the wheat waves,
the buffalo roam and most rites of passage still involve a pickup truck:

I'm sick and tired of having my pocket picked by your two-faced
politicians who talk a good game about self-reliance and limited
government, and then go behind closed doors and threaten to hold up every
piece of legislation unless they get another truckload of subsidies to
prop up your uncompetitive businesses and inefficient lifestyles. You
folks have become nothing more than welfare queens in overalls.

What am I talking about?

Let's start with the so-called energy bill, a monument to rural
selfishness and greed. As if $15 billion to $20 billion a year in farm
subsidies weren't enough, now you want to double the amount of subsidized
ethanol that is required to be used as an additive for gasoline,
ostensibly so we can have cleaner air here in the big city. Thanks but no
thanks, Elmer.

And then there are the billions more to finance the unending search for
ways to turn coal into a clean fuel. Could you please explain why the coal
industry is so special that it deserves to have its research and
development paid for by taxpayers -- particularly us taxpayers downwind
who have to continue to breathe dirty air because of the environmental
waivers tucked into this energy boondoggle?

Back in the 1930s, we city folk helped pay to bring electricity out to
your farms and subsidize your hydroelectric dams. And what thanks do we
get? We get your guys killing a plan by federal regulators to finally
bring some sense to a balkanized national transmission grid -- a plan that
could help prevent New York City blackouts and lower electric rates in
urban areas by injecting some competition into the market.

Then there is the Medicare bill, which was supposed to be about providing
drug benefits to seniors but wound up being yet another chance to whine
about the plight of country doctors and hospitals. Although the cost of
providing medical service is actually lower out there in God's country,
that hasn't stopped your guys from squeezing $25 billion more from the
federal treasury over the next decade to pad Medicare payments to rural
providers.

Down in Miami, meanwhile, U.S. trade negotiators have decided to sell
urban manufacturers and service firms down the river so that millionaire
farmers won't have to face the realities of global competition, like every
other American worker.

The aim of the talks is to create a free-trade zone from Canada all the
way down to Chile. But for Brazil and Argentina -- the key countries, from
the point of view of U.S. exporters -- there's no incentive to open up
their markets unless they can effectively sell their lower-cost sugar,
cotton, beef and citrus here. The United States refuses even to talk about
such possibilities, thanks to the stranglehold farmers have over our trade
policy. So what we're left with is some really terrific agreements with
Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

But the one I really love is the proposal to have the government bribe
tobacco farmers to give up the price supports that have subsidized their
operations -- and helped ruin the health of millions of Americans -- since
1938. Tobacco farmers consider these quotas personal property that can be
bought and sold and passed on to successive generations. But now that
demand for tobacco is falling, even the subsidies aren't enough to keep
the burly growers in the rural lifestyle to which they are accustomed. So
those free-market hypocrites, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen.
Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, are trying to add a rider to the omnibus
appropriations bill that would have the government spend $13 billion to
buy out a bunch of quotas and bring production down to levels where it
would have been if the government hadn't been subsidizing tobacco in the
first place.

Funny, but I don't remember McConnell or Dole proposing to "buy out" the
jobs of steel workers or airline mechanics.

Don't get me wrong, Elmer. I'm sure it's a wonderful life you've got out
there. But if it's so great, then you ought to be prepared to pay for it
yourself.