The Wall Street Journal’s editorial team wrote a great piece for yesterday’s paper. It points out some of the many disastrous policies that Congress is considering. Subsidies, mandates and other market distortions are leading to food riots around the world. Yet, politicians in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere continue to meddle in the food markets, causing economic pain and even increasing hunger. The farm bill is a good case study in how government planners cannot allocate resources as efficiently as the market. As Dick Armey reminds us, “The market is rational, but the government is dumb.” Here are some highlights from the Journal’s piece.
This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won’t stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins…
The White House and liberal reformers calculate that farm owners with clever accountants can have incomes of up to $2.5 million and still get a taxpayer handout…
And once again the big sugar plantation owners in Florida walk away with the sweetest deal: Big Sugar bagged an increase in price supports and a guarantee of 85% of the domestic sugar market at these guaranteed prices. So taxpayers are on the hook for buying surplus domestically produced sugar at 23 cents a pound and selling it for ethanol for closer to three cents a pound.
FreedomWorks Chief Economist Wayne Brough has an excellent piece up on freedomworks.org about the farm bill fiasco being debated in Congress this week. I met with Rep. Jeff Flake’s staff earlier this week and will be participating in a conference call with the White House to strategize about how to make sure this disgraceful farm bill doesn’t see the light of day.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. Brough’s piece.
Despite a record $175.5 billion in crop production, with the price of all major crops continuing to rise, Congress is seeking to expand subsidies for farmers. In fact, the bill now pending in Congress would allow married couples with an adjusted gross income of $1.5 million to receive subsidies from the government, and even individuals who are not full-time farmers would be eligible for subsidies with an adjusted gross income of $500,000! The White House has suggested a lower cap of $200,000, which is still more than four times the median household income in the United States.
I attended the weekly Bloggers Briefing hosted by Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation today. We had a good discussion about the policy implications of climate change legislation. Here are a couple of things that I want to share with my readers.
Iain blogs at CEI’s Open Market and National Review Online. I’m looking forward to reading his book.
Also, the Heritage Foundation has released a new study anaylyzing the Warner-Lieberman ‘cap and trade’ bill that will be up for debate this summer. Its findings are breathtaking in terms of the huge economic costs that ‘cap and trade’ would impose on the U.S. I’ve got a post over at Freedom Talks that links directly to the study.
My friend and fellow YCT activist Laura Elizabeth Morales is quoted in a Marie Claire article about allowing students to carry concealed guns on college campuses. She rightly points out that students are disarmed on campuses. Allowing responsible, licensed students to carry their gun on campus would deter crime and give students a fighting chance the next time some lunatic opens fire.
“Right now, you can bring a gun to the mall but not to school. Having a gun isn’t unsafe; not having one is unsafe. Concealed carry is for law-abiding citizens. To get a permit in Texas, you have to submit your mental-health history and go through 10 hours of safety training. As a girl walking from class at night, I don’t feel safe with just a knife or pepper spray. I’m not sure what I’d do if something bad happened, but I don’t want to be defenseless. Once we get the law passed, I’m going to get my permit and a small Glock that will fit in my purse.”
Pajamas Media has a great story about the rise of anti-regime bloggers in Cuba.
A few months before Yoani blogged her first post, Cuba’s communications czar, Ramiro Valdés, told an audience “the wild colt of the new technologies could and must be controlled.”
But such pronouncements by Cuba’s totalitarian leadership did not deter Yoani Sánchez. Today she is arguably the most well-known critic of the Castro regime, with well over 1 million visitors to her blog, Generación Y, each month.
It’s great to see blogs play an important role in getting out information to an oppressed people. Try as they might, the communist thugs in Havana won’t be able to stop the flow of information via the internet. The nexus of freedom and technology is too powerful to suppress.
Sean Hannity examines the link between Barack Obama and William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the video below. The Weather Underground was a radical domestic terrorist group that bombed the Pentagon, New York City police headquarters and planned an attack on Fort Dix. Ayers told the New York Times on Sep. 11, 2001 that he didn’t regret setting off the bombs. In fact, he wished he could have done more damage in his war against The United States.
Why does Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman say that he has a “friendly relationship” with William Ayers? Hannity explains the connection in the video below. Also, be sure to read the short biography of Ayers on Discover the Networks. As the Reverend Wright story will fade for a while, journalists should ask tough questions about the unrepentant terrorist’s connection to Barack Obama.
Ryan Sorba’s campaign to promote his upcoming book “The Born Gay Hoax” has reached new levels this week, with a video posted on Google Video that is being viewed across the country. The video was linked to by Breitbart TV and the local Washington ABC 7 station.
The Smith College lecture and the leftist antics that ensued have been discussed at length on Sean Hannity’s forum. It is clear that Sorba’s lecture and upcoming book, “The Born Gay Hoax” is already creating waves after just a few of his appearances on college campuses.
Watch the video of his speech at Smith College, which was hijacked by radical homosexualist protesters that forced him to leave.
Sorry for the hiatus from posting the last few days. I was back in Texas for my sister’s wedding. It was a great time and I got to see a lot of old friends, and make new ones. Now my sister and her husband are off to Fiji for their honeymoon!
I’ll be back to my normal blogging schedule tomorrow.
Here is the video from last night’s Glenn Beck Show on CNN. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey discussed our website AngryRenter.com and the looming mortgage bailout.
