Context on Kerry

On Friday, Reason's Brian Doherty reported on the Drudge bombshell that John F. Kenn--er. Kerry-- had talked about dismantling the Dept. of Agriculture. Doherty rightly asked for more context: While this charge doesn't rise to the level that surrounded Drudge's infamous, incorrect report on a certain former Clinton administration toadie and domestic violence, on the face of it, it seems unlikely.

(It's partly a testament to Kerry's complete lack of identity--even after 1,000 years in the Senate--that nobody really knows what the hell the guy is about, other than having touched the hem of JFK's garment as a boy, getting shot in Vietnam, and marrying the massively rich widow of a dead senator cum ketchup heir. Indeed, Kerry's bizarre series of tough-guy stunts--e.g. riding a Harley on The Tonight Show--is a nearly open admission that the guy is a cipher who is desperate to create a public persona; I half expect him to bend iron bars and explode a hot water bottle with lung power during the Iowa caucuses).

In any case, here's the context for Kerry's rather good suggestions, courtesy of Newsday. His comments are actually much more interesting than you'd think, calling for an end to Energy and Agriculture, and a consolidation of Education and Labor.

"I think we can reduce the size of Washington," the Massachusetts senator said in a 1996 interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. "Get rid of the Energy Department. Get rid of the Agriculture Department, or at least render it three-quarters the size it is today; there are more agriculture bureaucrats than there are farmers in this country. We can probably meld the Labor and Education departments because the job of both is so symbiotic today."

Whole thing here.

Then again, the only part of the Newsday story worth reading is the response from the Kerry campaign:

"John Kerry takes a back seat to no one to protecting America's farmers," [a Kerry spokesperson] said. "In fact, he has stood side by side with Tom Harkin in the U.S. Senate to protect family farms."

And, we can assume, that teachers, union leaders, and energy types are also safely in the front seat with Candidate Kerry.

Comments

[W. James Antle]

It's worth noting that Kerry made these comments around the time Bill Clinton was declaring the era of big government to be over, just as he was heading into a tough race against popular, libertarian-ish Gov. William Weld. I could be mistaken, but I'm not aware of him making such policy suggestions at any time before or since.

[Kevin Carson]

"cum ketchup heir"? Ewwwwwww!

[B.P.]

Is this the opening salvo in the libertarians for Kerry movement?

[s.w.]

Whaddaya mean "ewwww," Mr. Carson? "Cum Ketchup Heir" would be a totally awesome porno, unless Kerry is actually in it.

[ed]

The only thing I can remember regarding Kerry is a joke about him on The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart: "Hey Senator, why the long face?"

Seriously, there does not seem to be a "there" there.

[ed]

Oh yeah, two things.
He was on Cheers once.

[Gene Berkman]

Some additional context is provided by the fact that left-wing Congressman Barney Frank (Massachusetts) is opposed to farm subsidies, and has even invoked Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek in the debate over subsidies.

Rather than a principled attack on government intervention in the economy, this appears to reflect a split between urban and rural voters. Massachusetts is mainly urban, and people who live in cities pay the cost of farm subsidies, both in taxes and higher prices for groceries.

On the other side, many "conservatives" who represent rural districts or states support farm subsidies. Even Sen. Proxmire of Wisconsin, famous for his "Golden Fleece" awards, always backed dairy subsidies.

[Zathras]

OK, but were Kerry's ideas any good?

It's fine to say "let's abolish USDA," but what does that actually mean? It can mean doing away with everything USDA does, from meat inspection to pest research to food stamps, or it can mean abolishing the departmental bureaucracy and putting individual agencies under the aegis of one or more other departments. Or it can mean some combination of the two (it can even mean creating a new Cabinet Department, which is what happened when the old Health, Education and Welfare Dept. got split into HHS and Education. Let's assume that option is not on the table).

In the case of USDA, what Kerry probably meant was that the farm subsidy programs that make up such a large share of USDA's budget could go, and the agencies serving farmers (several of which overlap, though not as much as they used to) could be consolidated. I don't think he was proposing abolishing food stamps or the Forest Service. My suspicion is that, like most northeastern Senators, he did not know then (and does not know now) a great deal about USDA, and so was not completely sure what he meant to propose -- which is not a criticism, by the way, just an observation.

What about merging Labor and Education? This makes sense from the standpoint of the Senate, in which one authorizing committee has traditionally overseen both departments and one appropriations subcommittee has written both their budgets. Functionally, though, it might make more sense to merge some DOL functions (e.g. the statistical ones) with Treasury and others (e.g. anything to do with labor law) with Justice. Kerry here was probably thinking in terms of industrial policy (apart from the budget/oversight issue), which treats labor as the product of education and has from time to time has been a fad among Democratic wonks.

Interestingly, Kerry's 1996 remarks didn't mention the single most superfluous Cabinet Department we have. This is the Commerce Department, the chief responsibility of which is to provide an office for the President's most energetic fundraiser. Actually that is what the Department is for -- the agencies within the Department, principally the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are somewhat more useful. My own pet idea for government reform involves taking this agency, NASA (now an independent agency) and the Geological Survey and replacing Commerce with a new Department of Space and Physical Sciences. Part of the reasoning for this is that the factions within NASA promoting various projects not all of which can be funded require a referee removed from the agency's own bureaucracy. Part of it is my feeling that government is better off without people like Don Evans and the late Ron Brown in it, and if you can't get rid of them completely you can at least end the offensive practice of letting the put "Secretary" in front of their names.

[Franklin Harris]

So. Kerry drives a Hummer?

[Jeff Smith]

Imagine, a senator with no real political
beliefs, who tells different audiences what he
thinks they want to hear, and who tells bald-
faced lies whenever it is in his political
interest to do so.

Who would have imagined such a thing could
ever happen?

Put differently, Kerry is just like 90-95
percent of all senators and house members,
if not 100 percent these days (leaving out
Ron Paul and a couple of lefty nuts who
consistently vote the Stalinist line because
they are, well, Stalinists at heart).

Jeff, being very, very sarcastic

[Jeff Clothier]

I vote for President based on a single basic criterium: Would this guy look good on Mt. Rushmore and does he stand a chance of hell of attaining the kind of stature it would take to put him there. Based on that, Kerry is my only choice.

[Fred]

Nick,

Isn't is a shame that a guy with so much potential seems so reluctant to stand firmly for anything besides getting elected.

Thanks for what you wrote. Please send it on to the Kerry's campaign.

[Swamp Justice]

"Saddam Hussein was 're-elected' with 100% of the vote in Iraq. 98.5% of Congress was re-elected in America in 1998 and 2000." (http://bureaucrash.com/arsenal/propaganda/hussein.pdf)

[Matthew]

The fact that this was apparently worthy of a drudge headline and is apparently shocking to many people is a tremendously discouraging insight into how far we are from actually electing someone with the leadership and vision necessary to restore some semblance of sanity to government bureaucracy to any major public office. Elimination of those departments represents only a small step in the right direction, and if something like that is considered extreme, we're in a very deep hole, and the light at the top is getting smaller and smaller.

[The Wama]

IMO Kerry has no self-identity because he's never worked a real job for a day in his life. (I've been working since I was 14, when I was considered Illegal child labor). I'm not at all surprised to hear that the statement was less meaningful than expected, nor that he did it in a time where people were already favorable to such ideas. Kerry is the perrenial politician, who has never needed to establish himself in a meaningful way (the exception: Vietnam). It's a pity, because he may have been a good guy(judging from his Vietnam record), had he some character-building experiences earlier in his life. This, by the way, is why I'm a supporter of a Very progressive inheritance tax, which would help prevent the "spoiled brat" syndrome. De Tocqueville said in Democracy in America that part of what set the stage for the equality under the law and lack of oligarchy was a law that required inheritance to be split evenly among the sons, rather than going mostly to the first-born. Anyway, I'm an avid Dean supporter, a justification of this follows.

I posted what's below on the earlier post about the Kerry news breaking. Where the question quickly turned to whether Dean was the real libertarian candidate. Here goes:

Alright, so now that the smoke has cleared, it seems that some Libertarians are more like Republicans, others are more like Democrats in their policy positions. This can be explained by positions on the war, as well as the varying strength of conviction with which we hold our other postions(for example, abortion is not a clearly defined position, in terms of the libertarian view, and is open to consideration), as well as differences in opinion as to how to get to our vision of things as they should be(i.e. vouchers).

I still believe Howard Dean is the smart vote for libertarians(and I still think he'll get the democratic nomination, despite, and in part because of, the Iowa results, I'd explain, but I suspect we'll see it play out over the next few weeks). It's well known that the Democratic primaries are biased toward liberalism, in general. I think Dean has posed his position answers in such a way that satisfies liberals while not actually giving them the goods. For instance, once, asked if he supports a living wage, he said, sure, but he goes on to say that its not actually done through wage controls, but through programs such as his health care proposal. What's the difference? Here, the costs of the actions are visible, in the form of governmental expenditures. But the healthcare thing is still bad, right? Well not necessarily as bad as you think.

For Dean to actually balance the budget, without enraging voters, he has to cut the fat and can't AFFORD to have a big program and still balance the budget without raising taxes beyond the Clinton-era level. Dean himself say "It's not a Cadillac plan, we can't afford a Cadillac plan". Meanwhile, Bush is spending far more than he could, had he not cut taxes and just kept the budget balanced.

So I think, that while there are some risks, I think they are managable, particularly with the split-government aspect playing out.

On the other side of the fence, GW Bush is doing something similar to Dean, but in the opposite(statist) direction. He talks like a big conservative, but pushes medicare expansion bills, and others, particularly the Iraq war, BIG EXPENDITURES, all while cutting taxes. HE HASN'T VETOED A SINGLE BILL, for crissake. Running up big deficits has a very dangerous effect, which is spending money without paying for it. The taxpayer gets benefits, but doesn't pay the price, which will only lead to higher expectations from government. Meanwhile, serious economic effects are on the way, I suspect. I fear that Bush's actions will, in the next few years, hit us in the pocketbook, perhaps in seriously negative ways.

Anyway, just wanted to say, I stand by my statements before.

[joe]

Wama, prosecuting criminals isn't a real job?

Gene, I think a more likely distinction than urban/rural is the philosophy, shared by Frank, Kerry, and liberals everywhere, that it's ok for the government to help the needy financially, but that it shouldn't be helping the wealthy or big corporations.

[maria]

That was what I needed to convice myself I
would vote for Dean.

[maria]

That was what I needed to convice myself I
would vote for Dean.

[maria]

That was what I needed to convice myself I
would vote for Dean.

[Relton]

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[ragazzi muscolosi]

ragazzi muscolosi

[johny]

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Very inspiring, thankyou! Good luck to you in the future. 🙂