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Tim Cavanaugh | February 21, 2005

Jonathan Rauch wants to bring the deficit-cutting monster out of sequestration.

Comments

|2.21.05 @ 1:35PM|#

I saw cartoons in MSN Slate magazine that imply that Bush is going to cut farm subsidies. They paint it as a bad thing.

Is it true? I think that it would be awesome if true.

|2.21.05 @ 1:57PM|#

You read that right. Bush has no sacred cows, except the military; while everyone else is cut back to a bowl of rice a day, the Pentagon gets an extra helping of meat, potatoes and gravy.

Personally, I think slashing the farm subsidies is poetic justice: the president the red farm states re-elected because of his "values" decides to be the first president in memory to kick the ladder out from under them. That's what they get for not thinking about what his growing deficit means in real terms.

|2.21.05 @ 4:49PM|#

cdunlea

How about that farm subsidies are just plain wrong? Wrong wrong wrong.

Wrong because farms should not be subsidied, they should rise or fall on their own. You shouldn't tax somebody who is having a hard time making it, to give the money to rich farmers.

Wrong because farm subsidies fuel famine in the third world by not enabling them to compete (not sure about all the math on that one but I read a blurb about it).

And WRONG because all welfare is wrong.

God bless him for cutting farm subsidies. Regardless of the red-blue devide, right?

|2.21.05 @ 5:16PM|#

"Jonathan Rauch wants to bring the deficit-cutting monster out of sequestration."

Without lookin', I was thinkin' it was gonna be about Perot.

Phil|2.21.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Of course, George W. Bush voted for farm subsidies before he voted against them. Just like he voted for steel tariffs before he voted against them. But IOIYAR.

|2.21.05 @ 7:07PM|#

kwais,

I definitely agree with you on that. Regardless of a farm's need for price supports because they can't run their business profitably, it does seem to me a sin to pay farmers not to grow too much food when there is still starvation in the world. I never figured out why they couldn't grow the food, send it to Rwanda/wherever, and get Europe to pay us for it via the UN. (We have more food production capability than anywhere in the world; why can't the world pay us for it?)

The bad news is, Bush didn't cut the subsidies for any good reason; it's just that it's the last place to find the money to keep the government running without cutting the military budget. We're not saving money this way, just spending it on expanding the military state.

|2.21.05 @ 8:39PM|#

"There are other times, too: times to call upon the spirits of Beavis and Butt-head."

"Huh-huh, fiscal policy sucks!"

"Yeah, yeah, sucks!"

"Let's cut something!"

"Yeah, like your weiner!"

"Shut up, Beavis, or I'll cut your price supports!"

"Are you threatening me?"

etc.

|2.21.05 @ 10:05PM|#

"At the Heritage Foundation, budget analyst Brian Riedl notes that Bush's budget does not get a handle on swelling entitlement costs."

Yeah, bring back the monster, or somthing. We need it.