On Friday I took the opportunity to critique the CNN/YouTube GOP Presidential Debate — where I candidly expressed my disappointment of the video questions that were selected for that event. I figured that I would swing back and take a moment to highlight what I felt was the low-point of the affair…
GOP Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani were asked about whether they support taxpayer subsidies for American farmers… Both of them gave answers that were extraordinairily disappointing…. Romney and Giuliani both know better, and so I would catagorize this as political pandering at its best to corn-belt voters in Iowa and thereabouts. Check out this segment…
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There are several basic economic problems with agricultural subsidies (h/t CfG):
- Government should not be subsidizing any industry in America. It is simply not the proper role of the federal government.
- Farm subsidies, as they currently exist, take tax dollars from middle-class Americans and dole them out to wealthy farmers. It is nothing more than an income redistribution program.
- Farm subsidies distort the agricultural economy and create perverse incentives to grow crops based on their subsidy value rather than their market value.
- Farm subsidies impede our ability to expand international trade. High subsidies allow foreign countries to rationalize their own subsidies and their obstacles to importing American agricultural products.
- The notion that we need farm subsidies to protect the country’s food source is absurd. The country is not suffering from a lack of food supply. In fact, America is one of the world’s leading agricultural producers.
- Finally, the “unfair” argument is a protectionist claim, under the guise of supporting American farmers. If subsidized European produce is cheaper than unsubsidized American produce, American consumers should have the option of buying the cheaper produce, no matter where it comes from. If other countries want to let their taxpayers subsidize American consumption, we should not stand in their way.
We like to say that the best way to win elections against Democrats is to contrast them. Embracing a government subsidy for a private enterprise is straight out of the Democrat playbook, not ours!
Oh well, we’ll close with a story that puts everything in perspective…
On this quiet and rainy Saturday morning, you can be thankful that you do not live in the Sudan. This is a true story — as you read this, a British teacher is serving a two week jail sentence. Her crime? She had the nerve to name a Teddy Bear, "Mohommed" — and stiched that name on the stuffed animal. The teacher’s specific location is being kept secret as nearby, a thousand Islamic fundamentalists are protesting her "light treatment" with many calling for this teacher’s execution. Senior Great Britain politicians are on their was to Khartoum to try and negotiate an early release. Read about it here.
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