Reactions to story from Hot Air

• 

  Voters don't pay much attention to Congress unless there is a good scandal or bad spending, and the GOP has provided a generous supply of both

  http://rightrainbow.com/archives/2008/05/voters_dont_pay.htm...
  64 days ago in Right Side of the Rainbow · Authority: 41

  Can the Republican Party be saved? The name of the agenda doesnt matter, but the substance does. Voters no longer think lean government, smart and strong defense, and good old-fashioned family values when they think Republican. They think reckless
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  Morrissey on Agricultural Subsidies

  http://littlemissattila.mu.nu/archives/262572.php
  64 days ago in Little Miss Attila · Authority: 99

  I know I'm supposed to be even more pissed off at the Republicans than at the Democrats, here, but I'm pretty fucking pissed off at the entire House right now. There are a lot of people who are struggling to pay their bills right now, and this fucked-up
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  Pride: Ethanol and Food

  http://thesins.blogsome.com/2008/05/15/pride-ethanol-and-foo...
  64 days ago in 7 Deadly Sins · Authority: 17

  Yes, I know that Insty already gave you this link but, by gum, its worth re-reading. Those price increases? Blame OPEC, for causing fuel prices to rise 60% this year, plus increased demand from China and India. At $5 per bushel, the corn in a $3 box of cornflakes “cost 8 cents when bought from the farmer. So farm commodity prices have almost no effect on the retail consumers. But the effect of oil price hikes can be huge. You see, the point is that we are growing more corn (and wheat and rice etc…) than ever before. The rise in food prices are almost exclusively due to high fuel prices and not by grain prices. You want to be angry at agro-business, be angry at Congress for passing the bone-headed, dead-wrong farm subsidy bill. Robert Zubrin articulates my argument for ethanol/biofuel so wonderfully. Read his stuff, its not about now its about the near future. Would I rather see a different feed stock than corn for ethanol production? Of course! Algae is looking to be the best option from both the biofuel as a National Security issue people as well as the enviro-nuts. Is ethanol the “final solution”? I doubt it, but it is a solution for the short term that will buy us time to make alternatives. The technology exists to run ethanol, in the form of E85 or P-Series fuels, and is cheap to implement (around $100 per vehicle). A Federal Mandate (I feel dirty just saying that, BTW) to require all cars sold in the US to be Flex-Fuel capable, would blunt the hit to the economy when (note: not if) the plug is pulled on oil supplies (most likely from jihadis). We obviously would not be able to flip a switch and run on ethanol overnight, but having all vehicles able to run on ethanol makes a quick comeback from the eventual end of oil supplies possible. If oil was suddenly cut off, what do you think the effect on food prices (not to mention availability) would be? Think about that the next time you are ready to take a cheap shot at ethanol.
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  Mis-Timed Priorities

  http://hardstarboardblog.com/2008/05/mistimed-priorities.htm...
  61 days ago in Hard Starboard · Authority: 15

  Yesterday Ensign Ed lamented the House GOP's enthusiastic "bipartisanship" on the latest farm subsidy bill: Politico offers Republicans six ways that they can save the GOP, but yesterday provided them at least one concrete opportunity that they squandered. The House passed the latest farm bill with a veto-proof majority, bloating the budget with subsidies during a period where crops receive record prices. Instead of trimming fat from the budget, House Republicans joined Democrats in feeding special interests: The House yesterday passed a final version of a new five-year farm bill by a vote of 318 to 106, a margin large enough to override President Bush’s promised veto of the nearly $300 billion measure. The bipartisan show of support came after intense lobbying by a coalition that included farm groups, anti-hunger advocates, environmental organizations and the biofuels industry. While continuing traditional farm subsidy programs, the bill increases spending on nutrition programs such as food stamps by $10.4 billion. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer released a statement saying the vote “sends the wrong message to the rest of the country who are not experiencing the boom of the agriculture sector,” and, “This bill is loaded with taxpayer funded pet projects at a time when Americans are struggling to buy groceries and afford gas to get to work.” Rest assured I agree that Republican complicity in pre-emptively overriding a Bush veto of this mess is highly unfortunate. It's also less than a newsflash. I seem to recall just a couple of years ago - or was it three? - when the GOP-controlled Congress passed a very similarly bloated, pork-laden transportation bill, also by veto-proof margins. I also remember Bush not vetoing that bill, which raises the question of if he'll bother to do so now. The reality has ALWAYS been that pork is bipartisan. That 'Pubbies had a taste for it didn't suddenly arise in the last Congress; that can be traced all the way back to the end of the first-hundred-day Contract With America period in the spring of 1995. Only difference between the two was the price tag. Well, that and the fact that, as Ed notes and as I see every day in my day job, agricultural commodity prices have exploded over the past couple of years. If ever there was a time when farming interests did NOT need price supports, it's now. Add in the perennial energy chimera of corn-fed ethanol (which gooses up the price of high-fructose corn syrup that goes into everything from soda pop to hamburger buns) and you get an equation that is absolutely ass-backwards. We're pouring fiscal napalm on an inflationary blaze, distorting markets, contributing to hunger all over the world - for no other discernable purpose than mindless "process" and long-established corruption. My only point of departure from the Ensign's observations is his defense of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which originated farm subsidies. I think FDR knew exactly what he was doing, that these programs would NEVER go away, and always meant for them to become corporate welfare giveaways that would ensnare Big Business and the GOP right along with it into having a vested interest in maintaining the statist status quo. The last fourteen years is living proof of it. Still, that is not to say that even today's sadsack Pachyderms have completely lost their fiscal responsibility instincts. Unfortunately, their choice of when to exercise them left a great deal to be desired: President Bush's Iraq war funding request collapsed in the House Thursday as anti-war Democrats and Republicans unhappy about added domestic funding combined to kill — for now — $163 billion to support U.S. troops overseas. The unlikely coalition formed when Republicans expected to provide the winning margin for the Iraq and Afghanistan funding instead sat out the vote in protest. The GOP revolt was a response to Democratic strong-arm tactics in advancing the must-pass measure, as well as their efforts to add money for the unemployed and an expansion of GI education benefits. The defeat of the Iraq funding measure came on a 149-141 tally. Nearly two-thirds of the House's Democrats voted against continuing to fund the war as 132 Republicans sat out the vote in protest. Democrats then forced through a nonbinding plan seeking an exit from Iraq by December of next year. The 224-196 vote on the measure broke mostly along party lines. Yeah, the Dems attaching a poison pill was bush-league. But is there anything that can be more expected than that? Hell, "Christmas-tree-ing" must-pass legislation is Appropriations 101. Was under the GOP as well as the Donks. Why would this bill have been any different? More pointedly, why did Republicans make such a stink about the majority's cynical profligacy here but not on the farm subsidies bill? Sure, that latter would have passed anyway, but the point would have been much better made. Here all that was accomplished was precisely what Crazy Nancy's caucus wanted: the defunding of the troops and the passage of another "RETREEEEEAAAAT!" resolution. Even the alleged stand for fiscal restraint was substantially diluted: Thirty-two Republicans joined Democrats on a 256-166 vote to sharply boost education benefits for Iraq-Afghanistan veterans under the GI Bill — despite an accompanying tax surcharge on the wealthy and small businesses — and voted to provide a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits. Soooo, a sixth of the GOP caucus didn't just go along with the wasteful spending, but a classist tax grab to "pay" for it as well. Yep, THAT's playing to the base, huh? As you may have anticipated, their Senate counterparts are no better: Conservatives (?) Larry ["Wide Stance"] Craig, R-ID and Richard Shelby, R-AL, for example, sent out numerous news releases crowing about domestic add-ons such as $450 million to combat Western wildfires and $75 million to help commercial fishermen in a substantially more expensive Senate companion measure that cleared the Appropriations panel Thursday afternoon. Do I really need to say any more? Besides, Crazy Nancy's statement summed it up succinctly: "With today's vote, the Republicans have shown that they are confused and are in disarray. House Republicans refused to pay for a war they support, and by voting against the GI bill, they refused to support our veterans when they come home." Ed is spot-on when he writes: Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 by promising to revamp government and reduce it at the federal level, allowing for lower taxes, lower costs, and sensible policies. If they want to rebuild their credibility, they have to differentiate themselves by not just ending their own habits of feeding at special-interest troughs, but eliminating the troughs altogether. That raises the question of whether they want that credibility back, or have instead rediscovered their fondness for languishing in the minority, where they don't have to engage in political mortal combat on a daily basis, and can lead quiet lives of golf, accepting whatever pork scraps the ruling Donks condescend to give them, and otherwise staying out of harm's way. There was a reason the GOP spent forty years out of power in the House of Representatives. If current trends are any indication, this sojourn may make that one look like a brief intermission.
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  The Republican Party Is Doomed

  http://joebuckley.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/the-republican-pa...
  63 days ago in In Other Words · Authority: 13

  And They Should Party Like It’s 1964 It’s pretty clear that, baring the unexpected event that we should all expect, Sen. John McCain is going to be our next president.  He’s a good man and won’t lead the country to disaster.  It’s too bad that he’s not a Republican, philosophically, and barely recognizable as a conservative except on some secondary issues, because it’s only his decency that will keep this country from the economic ruin that comes with the socialism we’ll see otherwise. The House and Senate are going to be overwhelmingly Democrat come January 2009.  The electoral hit facing the Republicans resembles 1964, without a Bill Buckley or Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan to stir the ashes looking for a phoenix. Soul searching Republicans are turning to an unlikely savior, one-time party heretic and now presumptive White House nominee John McCain, as they try to stave off an electoral disaster. Stung by the Democratic seizure of three staunch conservative seats in Congress, Republican lawmakers fear a shellacking in November’s general election, after losing control of both chambers of Congress in 2006. It’s not that Congress won’t be conservative, or liberal, philosophically speaking, so much as devoutly corrupt and morally bankrupt, and I say this with complete confidence because of examples like the bi-partisan support of the farm bill. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer released a statement saying the vote “sends the wrong message to the rest of the country who are not experiencing the boom of the agriculture sector,” and, “This bill is loaded with taxpayer funded pet projects at a time when Americans are struggling to buy groceries and afford gas to get to work.” Bush has charged that the bill allows payments to wealthy individuals. He has also criticized restrictions on the use of food aid dollars in the midst of food shortages abroad, and he said that protectionist provisions, including “an egregious new sugar subsidy program,” could worsen trade relations. Ghack!  This is a conundrum for me, because I’ve seen myself as a moderate.  I support immigration in amounts that represent world record numbers of immigrants, but not wide open borders.  I support law enforcement and civil decency, but not the death penalty or a “state security apparatus” that spies on its (legal!) citizens and stifles business as much as Sarbanes-Oxley and ITAR do.  I support free speech rights and the right to bear arms and don’t you dare to burn the flag.  Both political parties have jettisoned their (extreme) bases to move to a center where I should be comfortable, but the center now consists of a mushy, idea-free zone where deals are construed as compromise and no politician has the courage of his convictions.  It can’t be my political home, because it runs no predicable (or controllable) course - only the expedient one. If moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans were to break away and form their own political party tomorrow, I could not join them when they offer us the health care plan of Hillary Clinton, the Amnesty for illegal aliens plan of John McCain, and handouts for those who default on mortgages (”Thanks, Pres. Bush - signed J.Q. Taxpayer”), and nonsense like this farm bill. Price supports make some sense for food security when prices are low, but that’s hardly the case now. Thanks in large part to subsidies for ethanol production, food prices have skyrocketed over the last few years. The market distortion has created hunger worldwide while robbing American taxpayers. Thanks to subsidies, Americans pay twice for foolish policy - once with the IRS, and a second time at the store with higher food prices. Indeed, I can find no solutions being offered from the center worth the name, not on The War or Terror, the mortgage crisis, the (growing) education or health care crises… Energy?  We haven’t built nuclear power plants or increased fleet gas mileage for the last 30 years, the ultimate in middle of the road, politically compromised failure. It’s okay, the republic will stand and we will survive.  But I really don’t expect the Republicans to.
• 

  And That’s Why We’re Losing

  http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=352
  64 days ago in Plumb Bob Blog · Authority: 24

  And That’s Why We’re Losing Today, we get a reminder of why the GOP is in trouble. Congress passed a whopping, 5-year, $300 billion farm bill that makes no sensible changes in US farm policy. Will somebody explain to me the sense of farm subsidies during a period of record food prices and record demand for farm products? And why are we allowing Sen. Mitch McConnell to speed up the depreciation allowance for racehorses? The bill also extends the insane tax credit for ethanol production at a slightly lower rate; without this tax credit, there would probably be no world food shortage this year. President Bush has vowed to veto the bill, but it was passed by a 3-to-1 majority that will easily override the veto. In other words, this senselessness passed with enthusiastic help from Republicans. Says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air: The continued federal intervention in markets continues with full GOP participation, and until that stops, voters will rightly see very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. Roughly 2/3 of the farm bill spending goes to increases in food stamps to compensate for rising food prices. Given that the main reason for the rising food prices is the subsidy for ethanol found elsewhere in the same bill, this makes no sense at all. Republicans were sent to Congress on a promise to halt this sort of self-destructive, out-of-control spending. Until they start producing, we can expect the bulk of the Republican party to stay home at election time.

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