Looking back, I saw this coming...

Just like the 3.5" of rain on my soggy fields. The Cantor defeat which was utterly unpredicted (my headline notwithstanding) now shines some light on a little known anti-economist economics teacher who has some puzzling views.

The full context of his second Holocaust prognostication comes in a section about how if Christian people “had the guts to spread the word,” government would not need to “backstop every action we take.”He writes:

Capitalism is here to stay, and we need a church model that corresponds to that reality. Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong? We appear to be a bit passive. Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.

[More]

Umm, okay. My knee jerk reaction is this guy could be a go-to legislator for a weird quote on a slow news day. While his relationship with the Tea Party was mostly that he was running against Cantor, there could be surprises all across the board. 

The upshot for me is the importance is the removal of Cantor, not the arrival of Brat.  It's hard to imagine the leadership battle being settled without an ugly fight, IMHO. 

In the immediate aftermath of Cantor’s defeat, camps inside the GOP were divided, with some Cantor allies urging him to stay on and help guide the party until November, while many of his critics privately warned that if he does not resign from his post they will promptly move against him.Associates of House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said they were telling him to quickly declare that he will stay in his position for another term and that he would like Cantor to stay on as majority leader through the end of the year, making the argument that unity and stability are critical for a House GOP in crisis.Others close to Boehner predicted that he may say little definitive in the days ahead about his own political future as he waits to hear from House Republicans about how they would like to proceed and whether conservatives, encouraged by professor David Brat’s upset in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, decide to target him in an effort to elect an entirely new slate of House leaders. [More]

Meanwhile, back in Mississippi, I have to believe this is not good news for Sen. Thad Cochran, even though he is applying liberal (heh) amounts of money to his runoff. 

Two consensus beliefs from the punditocracy:

1. Immigration reform is doornail dead.
2. Hillary just got a boost.

Both I think seem plausible. But we pundits haven't been doing so well lately, have we?

I would add there is no good news for ag in the resurgence of the Tea Party. We relied on bipartisan support to get our subsidies and TP doesn't do bipartisan.  In fact, we have yet to get the actual, you know, dollars.

Indeed, it is not impossible this bill could languish in a fight over school lunches. The longer it stays in committee the more it will "evolve", I would think.  Meanwhile, Aaron attended a Farm Bill info session for his FB board and was told the FSA has locked down all information on rule-making, as well as tossed out even more distant final rules dates.  We may not be signing up for anything until next spring, for example.  Ok - this is hearsay, but juicy, ya gotta admit.

Back to the ditches...

Not the only one...

Ezra Klein's essay in Vox that I found dismaying affected others in similar and divergent ways.  This is Will Wilkinson (I think) from the Economist*.

So we're screwed? Mr Klein offers only this cryptic sign off: "If American politics is going to improve, it will be better structures, not better arguments, that win the day".The outrage of gerrymandering, of the filibuster, of the overrepresentation of thinly-populated states in the Senate, of lax campaign-finance regulations, are all preoccupations of Mr Klein and others similarly taken by the romance of ideal democratic procedures, and there is certainly a great deal to say in favour of "better structures". But is there a path to "better structures" that does not run through "better arguments"? Alas, no. My sense is that the impulse behind Vox is a profoundly honourable one based on what Mr Klein at the outset of this piece calls the "More Information Hypothesis". The hypothesis is that in the presence of more, better and more lucidly presented information, the democratic public will improve the performance of its signature deliberative tasks. The design of Vox, especially its innovative use of evergreen explanatory "cardstacks", would seem to be the More Information Hypothesis embodied. Yet Mr Klein's introductory essay at the helm of his new publication appears to debunk the hypothesis on which the entire enterprise seems to be founded. If it's really true, as Mr Klein would have us believe, that we are basically deaf to information we'd rather not hear, no matter how clearly and colourfully conveyed, then what's the point of Vox?  'Vox' is of course Latin for 'voice'. Mr Klein's strange inaugural essay may seem an inauspicious beginning, but I detect a note of hope. If there is one force capable of combating "identity-protective cognition" it is the rare and precious disposition Keats called "negative capability"—"when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason..." Politics makes us stupid in no small part because of its incompatibility with negative capability—with the tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, and simple not-knowing that earnest truth-seeking requires. Now, there is more than a hint of "irritable reaching" in Mr Klein's call for "better structures"; he can't seem to reside wholly comfortably in the realm of uncertainties. Still, Mr Klein did have the audacity to launch a new publication presumably meant to shore up American democracy through access to better information with a lengthy meditation on the pointlessness of doing just that. That's negative capability! Coming as it does from our nation's capital—that dark eye of "a perfect storm for making smart people very stupid"—Mr Klein's unexpected plunge into the bracing waters of self-doubt comes as a bright and promising sign for Vox and its audience. [More]

I realize this has ever been thus, and appreciate your historical references, but what may be different this time is our ability to reinforce irrational thinking is getting a big assist from the self-definable information flows, from specific reliably biased TV channels to one-note websites.

Friday on Agritalk for example, Jim Weisemeyer and I joined Mike for a free-for-all discussion that, of course, leaned to Jim's expertise - politics. Jim is not a big Obama fan, and opined the big problem with Congress was the President's "failure to lead".  That like Clinton, he should be talking to congresspersons across the aisle.  When I asked him who would possibly be interested in going behind GOP leadership backs to craft a deal, he replied vaguely, "northeastern moderates" 

Seriously - Olympia Snow came to mind, but that's where it stops.  The list of moderate Republicans is not long. He mentioned PA congress members, but I checked the list and didn't see any reps who wouldn't immediately face a TP challenge if they tried that, and Pat Toomey doesn't strike me as someone ready to take on McConnell to deal with the Pres.

Moreover, when did it become the president's job to make congress do their job? Better still, how's that going to happen 'zactly when we don't have any money to throw around, because Congress is deeply concerned about the deficit and making it one of the minor issues (after Obamacare, Obamacare, and Obamacare) in this election. He used Clinton as an example, but that was long ago and far away politically. There are no "Bob Doles" or "Richard Lugars" under the dome. You might as well cite LBJ for an analogy.

Moreover, Obama's low approval is the central tool in the entire Republican strategy this year. I can't see anybody in their right-wing mind wanting to be seen shaking hands with Obama. 

Then it struck me, I'm probably missing some facts because of my filtering system, just like Ezra described in the essay. And for the life of me, I can't argue the other side. Can anybody else outline a scenario where the president crafts a deal with congress on say, immigration, that would last longer than the Camp Tax Reform plan?

How good is my information biasing mechanism?

*Yeah - I coughed up for a digital subscription.

Stalemate, mate...

While many Americans like to gripe about the lack of progress on, well, anything in Congress, few of us are particularly interested in looking beyond facile reasons why it exists.

For example, most of the outrage centers on the people of Congress and their character. This is too superficial by half, IMHO. We have had venal, self-serving political hacks in office for centuries and stuff still got done. I can't find much evidence our current crop of legislators is markedly different than previous members.

Sarah Binder has studied the phenomenon for years. Her take on gridlock:

Three forces fuel today's gridlock. First, divided party control of government raises the bar against major policy change. Parties are the only glue for bridging policy and electoral differences between the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, meaning that more can be done in periods of unified party control. Just compare President Obama's first two years in office (with Democrats controlling both branches) with the second two years (after Republicans captured the House). Congress was remarkably productive under unified control, enacting numerous landmark accomplishments, from health care reform to Wall Street reform. Under divided government, only do-or-die deadlines brought the parties to the table. Divided government continues in the 113th Congress, handicapping Congress even before it gets underway.Second, legislative parties have polarized over the past half-century, even though Americans remain centrist in their policy views. Polarization increases deadlock, because our political system requires large coalitions to adopt major policy change. Such coalitions are harder to build when few legislators occupy the ideological center. Increased polarization reflects the parties' ideological differences over the proper role of government, plus a strong dose of sheer partisan team play. As a result, much of congressional disagreement is strategic: The parties hold out for a full loaf rather than compromise on a half. Not surprisingly, when deadlines forced parties to the table in the 112th Congress, they often kicked the can down the road. As a result, the 113th Congress starts with a huge plate of leftovers, leaving little room for new issues.Third, stalemate is fueled by bicameral disagreement. Even when a single party controls both the House and Senate, disagreements arise that reflect electoral and institutional differences between the chambers. Bicameral differences are compounded when the parties split control of the chambers, as Congress's recent record attests. Bicameral obstacles remain high this year, with a smaller and more conservative Republican House facing off against a larger and more liberal Democratic Senate. [More]

One analysis I do find worth considering is the fundamental philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats. It turns out intransigence is not a half-bad way to fight political battles.

Republicans vote more or less exactly the same way, regardless of what kind of district they represent. The Republican representing the squishiest, most RINO-ish district in the country votes almost as conservatively as the one representing the most bullet-munching conservative district in the country. Republicans are voting in lockstep to defeat Mr Obama's legislative priorities; Democrats are showing nowhere near the same kind of discipline in supporting them.This doesn't predict what might happen if Republicans gained control of the Senate, or of the presidency. It's possible that with more power Republicans would feel freer to disagree with each other. With their backs to the wall, out-of-power Democrats might feel the need to present a more united front. But basically Democrats have less voting discipline than Republicans. George W. Bush was detested by Democratic voters every bit as much as Mr Obama is by Republicans, but Democratic legislators cooperated with him to pass major education and Medicare reforms; they negotiated an immigration-reform bill with him, and would have passed it, had he not been abandoned by his own party.In other words, if all else fails, the gridlock of the American government will probably end the next time the country elects a Republican president, since Republican legislators have the discipline to stonewall Democratic presidents while Democrats are more willing to compromise. That asymmetry is probably infuriating to Democrats, but unless their legislators adopt different voting behaviour, it's not going to change. [More]

But the driving force behind this discipline it the importance of gaining and holding political power as the paramount goal - not governing (getting stuff done).

One other theory about what could change this is also worth pondering.

“You should be depressed,” says Keith Poole. “It’s going to get worse.” Poole, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, has spent three decades studying congressional votes that stretch back to 1879. With collaborators Howard Rosenthal of New York University and Princeton University’s Nolan McCarty, he’s found that members of Congress are now less likely to vote against their party than at any time since the first decade of the 20th century.The small number of seats Democrats need to take the House (17) and Republicans to take the Senate (3) makes the problem worse, says Frances Lee of the University of Maryland. She argues a minority party with a plausible chance of reversing its fortunes in the next election has no incentive to cooperate with the majority to pass legislation. “They don’t want to cut deals that will blur the differences,” she says. From the 1950s to 1980, the Republicans couldn’t imagine a majority in Congress and settled for an ability to trade votes in exchange for altering Democrats’ bills. When Ronald Reagan won the White House, Republicans won the Senate and began to dream of the House, the beginning of an increasingly ruthless competition between the parties for control of the Capitol.McCarty is at least somewhat encouraged by the weakened filibuster. It may only address the symptoms of the larger problems, he says, “but some people can live fulfilling lives with illnesses, as long as they have the right drugs.” Lee is less optimistic. She says only one thing can force Congress to get back to legislating: One of the political parties must suffer a crushing defeat. [More]

It would be easy to despair of our future, but somehow in the midst of all this gridlock the country has emerged from a recession, ended two wars, and begun to address our health care problems. It could also be that freeing up unlimited outside money for candidates will have the effect of creating some free agents somewhat less tied to party discipline. I can see that helping compromise, but it will throw a new wrench in the works.

There is an economic question here: how much money can the political system absorb effectively? At some point, I would assume air-time commercials, robo-calls, mailers, GOTV volunteers ads, etc. reach a saturation point and produce few additional votes. Do we know where that level of spending is?  Could we find out?

For years, scholars of elections have argued about whether campaign finance limitations adversely affect electoral competition. In this article, we examine how the institutional campaign finance restrictions differentially affect the performance of incumbents and challengers. Using elections for the state high court bench between 1990 and 2004, we demonstrate that candidate spending in judicial elections has diminishing marginal returns, but that the returns to challenger spending diminish more slowly than incumbent spending. Since this is the case, campaign finance restrictions that limit candidate spending disproportionately harm challengers, increasing the incumbency advantage and decreasing electoral competition. More specifically, we show that states with more stringent contribution limits have lower levels of candidate spending, and these restrictions thus put challengers at a competitive disadvantage. [More]

I could see more Americans becoming more inured, even resistant, to campaign efforts.  We already dread the endless commercials and yard signs. While the big winner in unlimited contributions is those in the business of political campaigns and media, I could see a rapid decrease in bang for the buck.

You can't party all the time...

 It's hard to take the Tea Party seriously when their heroes take positions like this:

The story ends on the comical note of quoting Florida Representative Ted Yoho, tea party maven and avowed enemy of big government, defending his strong advocacy of sugar subsidies: “I ran on limited government, fiscal responsibility and free enterprise, but when you’ve got programs that have been in place and it’s the accepted norm, to just go in there and stop it would be detrimental to our sugar growers.”You hear that? Sugar subsidies are an accepted norm. If tea partiers believe anything, it’s that, once a government program has been in place, we can’t get rid of it. It would hurt sugar growers, Yoho proceeds to explain, by forcing them to sell their product in the free market on even terms. This is completely unlike programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, which Yoho wants to cut, because cutting them wouldn’t be detrimental to anybody. At least not anybody he cares about.We should be perfectly clear about the fact that Democrats do not have clean hands here — especially not on sugar subsidies, where Democrats representing rural constituents happily shovel billions into the farm subsidy maw. But the Republican enthusiasm for wasteful domestic spending here is what’s especially telling, because it’s the Republican Party that has declared rhetorical war on government, and which is its entire weight behind a broad-based assault on Obamacare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and the entire structure of government support for the disadvantaged. [More]

What is is about farm policy that can completely undermine absolute positions without causing heads to explode? This is hypocrisy of the highest level.

I am beginning to think Republicans are realizing with teammates like this, who needs opponents?

It also suggests there can be perverse consequences to severe gerrymandering.

The answer is...

 Lobbyists!  I read some self-serving drivel before masquerading as opinion, but this one is remarkably upfront. about how to help agriculture achieve a successful trade agreement with the EU.

There is a need to engage seriously through government relations work instead of simply public affairs work to counter commonly held views across Europe. Past failures can also be attributed to an American lack of sensitivity about the Brussels lobbying scene. No European tries to lobby Senate or Cngress without the help of a DC lobbying firm. For good reasons. So why do some American companies still think they can handle themselves? While there is real money at stake. US companies should seek professional lobbying services on the TTIP issue, and especially lobby firms that understand the agricultural EU politics, process and rules of engagement in Brussels. They should rely on firms that understand sensitivities in Europe. Companies that will rely on specialized lobby firms, which will come up with the most convincing arguments by understanding the political and social realities on both sides of the Atlantic will have the best chance to change Brussels’ stance on GMOs now.
So while the differences in transatlantic approach towards GM foods pose a concrete threat to the conclusion of the trade agreement, the trade talks themselves provide the ultimate opportunity to enable the authorization and cultivation of GM crops in Europe. The TTIP would be the biggest free-trade deal in the world. According to the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London a trade agreement which eliminates tariffs and reduces non-tariff barriers could boost US and EU economic growth by more than $100 billion a year.
Geiger is managing partner of Alber & Geiger, a leading EU lobbying law firm. [More]

I'm sure mercenary soldiers used much the same pitch to medieval rulers back in ye olde day. 

Thoughts on Washington...

 While all bets are off in this historic event, let me lay our some information that is guiding my estimate of what could happen in the near future.

First, the unprecedented phenomenon of "The 80"

In short, these eighty members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed.In one sense, these eighty members are acting rationally. They seem to be pushing policies that are representative of what their constituents back home want. But even within the broader Republican Party, they represent a minority view, at least at the level of tactics (almost all Republicans want to defund Obamacare, even if they disagree about using the issue to threaten a government shutdown).In previous eras, ideologically extreme minorities could be controlled by party leadership. What’s new about the current House of Representatives is that party discipline has broken down on the Republican side. On the most important policy questions, ones that most affect the national brand of the party, Boehner has lost his ability to control his caucus, and an ideological faction, aided by outside interest groups, can now set the national agenda. [More]

Now add in the Boehner problem. He's just not a very good or far-sighted Speaker.

Yes, Speaker John Boehner has a very hard job. He is leading a party riven by conflict. He is mistrusted by the Tea Party. He's found that he has to lead from behind lest he watch his initiatives fail on the floor of the House.But Boehner routinely makes his job harder than it needs to be. He didn't have to go around irresponsibly promising his members a "whale of a fight" on the debt ceiling. He could bring legislation to the floor with Democratic votes and, if that endangers his speakership, he could try to cut a deal to keep control with Democratic votes. He could also simply try and govern in a more responsible way and, if that means losing his position, so be it.

If Boehner wanted to, he could cut deals to pass comprehensive immigration reform, a grand bargain on the budget and the permanent end of the debt ceiling. All that might mean that is he's not speaker in 2015 and is, instead, a rich lobbyist, or a well-paid university professor, or a member of multiple corporate boards, or maybe even just a member of the House of Representatives. It's not such a horrible fate. [More of a really helpful analysis from Ezra]

One other factor I just ran across this morning. Compromise is not favored. At least, not yet.

Americans are perfectly, identically, symmetrically split on whether the GOP is justified in demanding major changes to Obamacare in exchange for funding the rest of the government, according to a new Pew Research poll. It's just another reason why this shutdown isn't likely to end any time soon.Asked whether Obama should agree to a shutdown deal that includes changes to his health care law, the "yes" responses among Republicans, Independents, and Democrats went 77 percent-40 percent-18 percent. Asked whether the GOP should agree to a deal to fund government without health care changes, the R-I-D responses were practically palindromic: 14 percent-43 percent-75 percent. [More]

Finally, I have come to believe the idea of sending the economy down the tubes is not all that abhorrent to Republicans as they feel it will be attached to Obama. lacking apparent economic savvy and dependent of simplistic economic analogies like comparing the government to a family, they have no idea how disastrous slipping back into recession would be, or how few arrows we would have to slay the bear again.

While I think the economy can take an considerable blow from Washington, should it truly lose all growth momentum, I am deeply concerned about the possibilities. Perversely, I find myself almost wishing the R's would rediscover in a hurry why Hoover was wrong so long ago should that awful outcome arrive and they assume full control of government. 

The ensuing recession will not be solved by slashing taxes and regulations, cutting entitlements, and balancing the budget. We may get to watch that happen, however.

While I still believe in powerful self-righting forces of our system, they unimagined political characteristics of today's Washington have negated many of those historic tools.

Political debate at its best...  

I urge you to take the time to follow this TED talk (20 min.) and then note if your opinions on one-party rule vs. democracy have changed at all.


 

Then read this careful response [also worth your time]. An excerpt:

Like Li, I do not like the messianic tone some have invoked to support democracy. I support democracy on pragmatic grounds. The single most important benefit of democracy is its ability to tame violence. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker provided these startling statistics: During the 20th century, totalitarian regimes were responsible for 138 million deaths, of which 110 million occurred in communist countries. Authoritarian regimes caused another 28 million deaths. Democracies killed 2 million, mainly in their colonies as well as with food blockades and civilian bombings during the wars. Democracies, as Pinker pointed out, have trouble even bringing themselves to execute serial murderers. Democracies, Pinker argued, have “a tangle of institutional restraints, so a leader can’t just mobilize armies and militias on a whim to fan out over the country and start killing massive numbers of citizens.”
Contrary to what he was apparently told when he was a Berkeley hippie, the idea of democracy is not that it leads to a nirvana but that it can help prevent a living hell. Democracy has many, many problems. This insurance function of democracy — of mitigating against disasters — is often forgotten or taken for granted, but it is the single most important reason why democracy is superior to every other political system so far invented by human beings. Maybe one day there will be a better system than democracy, but the Chinese political system, in Li’s rendition, is not one of them. 

To have the opportunity to balance these two views is also a more common event in democracies I would think. But to see political debate done well and persuasively can only remind us of what we have lost in our public sphere. I found Li's suggestions persuasive until the critique jolted my memory of what our democracy has been and could be again. In fact, upon reflection I think the our two political systems could pass each other going opposite directions. Not a strong chance, but a real one.

[via Mankiw]

The oatmeal-Obamacare connection...  

In what may be one of his best columns ever, Rex Huppke at the Chicago Tribune connects two widely spaced dots to sound the alarm for "rill 'Mericans":

Fortunately, there's something we can do about this desecration of an American breakfast tradition. And it can be done while also trying to prevent millions of people from getting health care, thus killing two — or possibly 30 million — birds with one stone.
A brave group of tea party Republicans has decided that the best way to get rid of Obamacare — since voting to repeal it 39 times doesn't seem to be working — is to not fund the law. Heroes like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Ted Cruz of Hateseverythingistan say they'll oppose any budget that gives money to the health care law, even if that means risking a government shutdown.
This is similar to when Abraham Lincoln famously avoided an American civil war by holding his breath until the South agreed to free the slaves.
The tactics of Cruz and company have been praised by many Republicans, including North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, who called it "the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
In a recent speech, Cruz said that the Obama administration's tactic is to "get everyone addicted" to Obamacare, thus making it impossible to abolish. He's right. Outside of caffeine and cocaine, there are few things more addictive than access to affordable health care.
My guess is this is the same trick Jamba Juice has up its hemp sleeve. The company — clearly a radical left-wing group of nutrition Nazis — has co-opted something all Americans want (oatmeal) and is using it to get us hooked on smoothies that will turn us into dope-smoking pacifists.
So today I call on Sens. Cruz, Rubio and Lee to not just demand the defunding of Obamacare, but to hold the country's budget hostage until Jamba Juice promises to take its mitts off our oatmeal.
Because if there's one thing that's worth risking the full faith and credit of the United States over, it's anything that might possibly make us healthier. [Read the whole thing to start your day right in multiple ways]

The defund movement has gathered enough big names (all the assumed GOP presidential timber - which says something about the field) to make it newsworthy for that fact alone. But saner voices are coming forward to point out some flaws with this strategy. Like lowering expectations.

SK: What do you expect the Obamacare rollout to be like this October?

TC: I don’t know. What I do know is if you do say it;s going to be terrible, terrible, terrible as Republicans have been saying, and it’s only one terrible, it’s going to look good. We shouldn’t overhype things. We should just watch. The fact that they’re going to do everything they can to get as many people as possible to participate matters. [More]

I have a sad suspicion we are heading toward a total meltdown on the right as the divisions in the GOP make any legislative action impossible.

This includes a farm bill, BTW.

Your inner conservative caveman...  

It used to be standard copy to poke fun at food faddists, especially for those of us in agriculture. But the curious trend is such food belief systems are not just growing by adding adherents, but multiplying to offer diets/lifestyles to match up with your other worldviews, including politics.

While we automatically look to the left when vegans are discussed, a new approach on the right is every bit as unique: the Paleo-libertarian conjunction.

Paleo’s main proponents aren’t particularly partisan. Mark Sisson, who keeps the Paleo blog MarksDailyApple.com, says on his page that “people’s health and personal enjoyment of life matter more to me than politics and the hot air from the latest pundits.” But Libertarians have embraced the caveman set as kindred spirits, and it would appear that the caveman lifestyle and anti-state, laissez-faire tendencies often come hand in hand. Paleo-Libertarian logic maintains that the U.S. government is to blame for obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and dozens of other ills by virtue of telling us to eat the state-subsidized fruits of Big Agriculture’s labor. It says the USDA’s nutrition guidelines were created with the food lobby, not the human body, in mind.

These are by no means implausible or even particularly radical claims. Some socialists and environmentalists have come to the same conclusions, at least nutritionally speaking. Still, this admittedly healthy distrust of government — not to mention the adoption of a diet that is the complete antithesis of the USDA’s recommendations — is innately libertarian. Gary Taubes, a science writer best known for his anti-sugar crusades, is widely cited in Paleo circles. When Reason magazine asked him why so many libertarians are drawn towards Paleo, Taubes responded that perhaps they simply “like the idea that government agencies and federal agencies can be just dead wrong.”

Some true believers take the “natural” argument even further by asserting that the centralized state, and all of its freedom-thwarting attributes, are a consequence of a grain-based agricultural society. The low-fi libertarian website LewRockwell.com features pages upon pages of articles about the Paleo lifestyle written in a rugged, conspiratorial tone. “It came to me like a revelation on my morning commute: Bread is a tool of the state,” writes one commentator. “The ‘staff of life,’ the very symbol of food itself, has become to me a symbol of the domestication of humankind. It has also suggested one more way I can work to strengthen the individual and weaken the state.” [More]

It is the growth in food-politics crossovers that convinces me it will have more impact on our food system and the politics of agriculture than farmers currently imagine. Since it is a splintering of demand for food products and production methods, the market signals will be weak and confusing. Our large-scale approach to food will struggle, I would think, to address consumer desires - at least the wealthiest and most lucrative markets.

At first, I thought it would be largely confined to meats and ripple back to me through corn demand, but the growing grain/starch-avoidance diets, to cite one example, also present market questions. Moreover these divisions will occur within political camps, not just across them.

Of course, these market forces are still quite small, and frankly, I think production issues like climate change will overshadow their influence on markets in the near future. Still, I have some background suspiscions that market opportunities are going unexploited.

This is unexpected?...  

Ag Secretary Vilsack's blunt criticism of rural voter political tactics received a lot of headlines in the press.

Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks found that rural voters accounted for just 14 percent of the turnout in last month’s election, with 61 percent of them supporting Republican Mitt Romney and 37 percent backing President Barack Obama. Two-thirds of those rural voters said the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.

Vilsack criticized farmers who have embraced wedge issues such as regulation, citing the uproar over the idea that the Environmental Protection Agency was going to start regulating farm dust after the Obama administration said repeatedly it had no so such intention.

In his Washington speech, he also cited criticism of a proposed Labor Department regulation, later dropped, that was intended to keep younger children away from the most dangerous farm jobs, and criticism of egg producers for dealing with the Humane Society on increasing the space that hens have in their coops. Livestock producers fearing they will be the next target of animal rights advocates have tried to undo that agreement. [More][My emphasis]

I'll grant that Visack is not a charmer at his most congenial, but while his assertion has some validity, I suspect the larger problem is the intense gerrymandering that has created rural districts so heavily Red that representatives can get away with anything secure in the knowledge that ideology will trigger an automatic response in the voting booth.

Democrats have been packed into three uncompetitive seats around Philadelphia, an uncompetitive seat in the Lehigh Valley, and a safe seat in Pittsburgh. The state's suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas have been rigged to be just outside the range where Democrats might win them. [More]

Note also the cognitive dissonance in demanding a new farm bill with an indisputably lavish safety net for grain producers and the emphasized statement above. If I were a rural legislator in a blood-red district all I would fear is an even redder primary opponent. The irony here is the far, far right is the biggest threat to farm subsidies.

 

Just a reminder...  

Recovering from and analyzing the implications of the election have been taxing (heh). Plus I was forced to spend some time in Las Vegas speaking to dairy producers.

But two recent items helped me makes some sense of these events.

First a reminder we are the Purple States of America:

 [click to enlarge] [Source]

I think shifting to this image from the red-blue digital mode is a better model for our brains to use. We have stark divisions enough without introducing an arbitrary and inaccurate choice of two options.

Today I also read something that may help explain why current events are so troublesome for many: the pace of change is really remarkable.

Whether we intended to or not, whether it was sufficient or not, whether we liked it or not, we have been living through a remarkable period of political change in these last few years. We have bored through so many hard boards that we’re no longer surprised when we reach the other side, and we mainly wonder why we haven’t gotten through more of them, or why we didn’t choose different ones. But viewed against most other eras in American life, the pace of policy change in these last few years has been incredibly fast. Historians, looking back from more quiescent periods, will marvel at all that we have lived through. Activists, frustrated at their inability to shake their countrymen out of their tranquility, will wish they’d been born in a moment when things were actually getting done, a moment like this one. [More well worth the time]

We do get tricked into forgetting all the changes we have seen. Perhaps we have become better at adapting. But there is a pace that discomfits us. I think we have met or exceeded that for many, and will continue to face difficult adjustments.

It's not the left...  

You need to worry about if you want subsidies. Consider this tweet from Josh Barro, conservative economist with impeccable credentials:

@jbarro:Farmers talking about why they need subsidies sound almost exactly like teachers talking about why it should be impossible to fire them.

I never imagined the wind down of ag subsidies would be effectively abetted by farmers angry over obscure ideology. But that appears to be the way they will vote.

Whatever. You go guys.
 

Better let your breath out...  

Like many observers, the addition of fiscal hawk Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket strikes me as bad news for those hoping for a farm bill anywhere close to the dream of a full safety hammock net:

If the president is for it, House leaders are going to be even more entrenched against it. Moreover, passing a farm bill would highlight lawmakers approving a measure that the Republican vice presidential nominee has strongly criticized in the past and unsuccessfully tried to change by demanding further program cuts. They simply can't pass a bill that would appear to be an affront to one of their own now running on the presidential ticket.

In his budget plan, "The Path to Prosperity," Ryan stated that lawmakers should reduce or eliminate direct payments, which was considered a foregone conclusion. But, like President Obama's budget proposal, Ryan also sought in his plan to "reform the open-ended nature of the government support for crop insurance, so that agricultural producers assume the same kind of responsibility for managing risk that other businesses do."

The "record-breaking prosperity of American farmers and farm communities" demand re-examining federal farm programs "to ensure that taxpayers aren't funding support for a sector that is more than capable of thriving on its own," Ryan stated. [More]

Chris has this nailed, I think. The first quoted sentence is the important one. I can see Obama moving from farm indifference to admiration for a new political chip by taking up the farm bill cause in stark contrast to Ryan's longstanding opposition. And Republicans simply cannot even hint at agreeing with this president on anything, at least not before the election is over.

It's not like the measure was sailing along anyway, and with increasing stridency from the Tea Party and right-wing think tanks, all bets are off on all parts of the bill.

In fact, my strongest inclination is that a combination of whopping crop insurance payouts by the government, budget cuts, and chickens like ethanol (which has always been controversial) coming home to roost, the next farm program could be so meager most farmers will opt out due to a very low benefit/hassle ratio.

In the process, we may find ourselves oddly happier and more in control of our farms and futures.

Preparing Plan B...  

While I am seriously concerned that the Republican mindset is simply about power, the members who seem to be driving the bus having given some signals to indicate what a broad Republican victory this fall might mean.

Curiously, in a few ways, I might support their goals.

We can, I think, forget about the deficit reduction as likely. The goal for the right is to cut programs they hate and taxes. The first is a trivial amount (shutting PBS down won't dent the budget), and they have shown little regard for other supposed spending targets. 

One of which is, (ahem), the farm program.

A target price supporter discounted the idea that Tea Party House members would rebel against the notion of government set prices.
“It never comes up with them,” one said.  
Key members of the freshman class are seen as allies.
Reps. Martha Roby (R-Ala), Austin Scott (R-Ga.). Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), Steven Fincher (R-Tenn.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.), Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and Robert Hurt (R-Va.) are seen as in the peanut camp.  [More]

This is just one example of unwillingness to cut anything other than stuff outside a your own district. This especially holds true for defense. Meaningful reform of major entitlements/defense look pretty low probability to me right now.

“The whole point here is to try to get some economic growth, job creation, to get out of this recession,” Kyl told POLITICO. “Why would we risk going backward with policy that even CBO says would be the wrong prescription right now?”

Arizona’s other senator, John McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, dismissed Reid’s comments as “unfortunate.”

“I think it makes it pretty clear what Senator Reid doesn’t understand are the devastating effects on our nation’s security that Secretary Panetta has so graphically described,” said McCain, a Vietnam veteran and retired Navy captain.

“I wish [Panetta] would take a trip down to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and tell the president we cannot afford this from a national security standpoint,” McCain added. “That isn’t John McCain’s opinion; that is Leon Panetta’s opinion.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, an Air Force reservist, chimed in as well: “Gutting the military should be the last thing we want to do.” [More]

Keep in mind this was the deal they agreed to last summer. Which makes me pretty sure they will renege on any campaign-promised spending cuts in that huge block of the budget.

On the other hand, I don't think I can even guess how many tax targets they will aim for. And hit. Revenues will almost certainly drop to great cheers, even as corresponding cuts bog down. And a new war somewhere will suddenly become more feasible, along with some costly bullets.

Simple history tells us Republicans are bigger spenders and deficit producers, and especially unfunded spending. While they have neatly convinced many that Obama has been a big spender, he pales in comparison to Bush, and Reagan. They have, however failed to convince people who can do the math.

 [Source]

 Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention. The only significant shortcoming of the graphic is that it fails to note that some of the restraint in spending was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True. [More]

I was as surprised by these numbers as critics, but being a Keynesian, I support government spending increases during recessions, but not expansions. Thanks largely to the wind-down of the Iraq war and, in fairness, a less than cooperative Congress, the Obama "splurge" simply never happened.

My point is not to continue the did-too/did-not charges, but to estimate what a Republican sweep of power might mean for spending. Romney gave us a hint, I think in a recent interview with TIME.

Halperin: I want to get to a lot of those, and let’s go to spending, which is a big thing for you, one of the bases of comparison – you say you’d cut spending a lot more than the President has.  And like most governors I know, you can get down in the detail.  A lot of people don’t know that about you; you can really get your arms around a policy issue and go deep, so let’s talk about spending.  You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically.  Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office?  Why not do it more quickly?
Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%.  That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression.  So I’m not going to do that, of course.  What you do is you make adjustments on a basis that show, in the first year, actions that over time get you to a balanced budget.  So I’m not saying I’m going to come up with ideas five or ten years from now that get us to a balanced budget.  Instead I’m going to take action immediately by eliminating programs like Obamacare, which become more and more expensive down the road – by eliminating them, we get to a balanced budget.  And I’d do it in a way that does not have a huge reduction in the first year, but instead has an increasing reduction as time goes on, and given the growth of the economy, you don’t have a reduction in the overall scale of the GDP.  I don’t want to have us go into a recession in order to balance the budget.  I’d like to have us have high rates of growth at the same time we bring down federal spending, on, if you will, a ramp that’s affordable, but that does not cause us to enter into a economic decline. [More][My emphasis]

Another way of putting this is expressed well by David Frum, a conservative heretic whom naturally I read. "We're all Keynesians during Republican administrations." Romney is at least smart enough not to try drastic cuts while the recovery is still struggling. The problem is while I agree with this, Congress may force just enough reductions to slow us to a halt, or alternately, after getting back to 4% growth, decide deficits don't matter again.

Where is all this leading me? Well, in discussion with my family this weekend, it dawned on me there are some things we could anticipate in a Romney win that would allow us to better cope during the ensuing administration.

• My taxes will likely be lower than otherwise. Thanks to $6 corn, etc. I'm in the coddled sliver of 1%. We'll get ours first. And no, I won't be creating any jobs. In fact, I will be investing in technology that lowers labor needs (autonomous chainsaws, 600 hp.wheelbarrows, etc.) But given where demand will go, I won't be expecting big sales surges.
• I think it puts a real horizon on low interest rates. I'm not too sure how fast the bond market will respond, but it could be faster than I think, raising interest rates despite Fed actions to the contrary. So my long-standing bias against piles of cash will be at least mitigated by seeking protection from interest costs. Sooner or later we'll have to inflate this debt, but the time delay for interest rates could be bigger than I imagine.
• The economy could plunge (see also: UK), but more likely meander back into recession, in my best guess. The right has shown little finesse in fiscal policy and our delicate balancing act to encourage our fragile growth will succumb to policy lurches like SNAP cutbacks, unemployment cutoffs, and more government layoffs - especially at the state level. Meanwhile, tax cuts for the wealthy will have minimal stimulative effect on consumer spending, but could fuel asset inflation significantly. This could, in turn, keep farmland price growth strong, even as commodity prices stagnate or decline.
• The effect of the resulting deficits will be hard to predict politically. Given the intransigence of the right on revenue increases (taxes), and the simultaneous reluctance to truly reform health care - which is THE problem - they may just be ignored as long as we remain the least ugly currency and can attract the immense hoard of free-floating cash in the world.
• One sure thing is the end of health care reform for a while. Even so, the numbers on that problem might force even reluctant Republicans to try something. I just can't see them cutting off their largest demographic - the elderly - with any serious Medicare decreases. As for Medicaid, we too often forget it's increasingly about nursing homes, not just welfare moms/children. (Interesting note on this problem: it may not be enough to exhaust Mom's assets to qualify her nursing home costs for Medicaid coverage. Junior's assets may have to go as well.) One thing seems likely, large increases in the uninsured.

All of this speculation is worth the paper it isn't written on, of course. But the one scenario I think has the lowest possibility is a realistic long-term grappling with the deficit-causing problems, unless the economy is roaring and tax revenues growing by November, allowing some funds to actually be used to address the deficit.

But in that case, Obama is more likely to win.

As for farm prices, I think soon we'll suspect, at least, the yield curve has been altered by climate change, and assumed yield growth will be re-thought. We may realize our supply issues are real after a couple more below-trend yields.

So be lucky with rain, but avoid floods, stay in the 1%, don't have children/grandchildren to put through college or expect to have jobs for, don't lose your health or health insurance before 65, and you should be fine.

Much like my tax return...  

 The math for budget-cutting is tricky.  I have been studying the Romney/Ryan hybrid proposal and agree with most econobloggers who are not sure where he can find the loopholes/deductions to pay for his tax breaks.

The first thing to note is that there are clearly enough tax expenditures to finance the $900 billion cost that the Tax Policy Center reckons Mr Romney’s plan will cost (relative to current law). But as you dig into the list, problems arise. First, these expenditures would be worth a lot loss once Mr Romney has cut income tax rates (see my caveat below). Second, Mr Romney has put several off limits, most notably the preferential rate on dividends and capital gains (worth $91.3 billion) and the ability of corporations to defer tax on foreign income ($19.6 billion), since under his plan corporations would not owe taxes on such income. Third, several will presumably be off limits: is he really going to tax Medicare benefits ($79.3 billion) or eliminate the earned income credit ($58.5 billion)?

But the biggest problem is one not obvious from the table: the distribution of these breaks. Yes, they disproportionately benefit the upper 20% of households because their tax rates are higher. Nonetheless, as this Tax Policy Center paper notes, roughly a third went to the bottom 80% of households (especially tax credits and above-the-line deductions). Since Mr Romney has said he would spare the middle class, most of this money would be off the table. Where it gets really interesting is inside the top 20%. Many deductions are in effect capped. As a result, their biggest beneficiaries are not the top 1% but the next 19%, with one exception: the preferential rate on capital gains and dividends, more than half of whose benefits go to the 1%. By eliminating tax expenditures for upper income families except the preferential rate on capital gains and dividends, Mr Romney’s plan would be a gigantic transfer from the upper middle class to the rich. And keep in mind that the upper middle class is also the group likely to pay most under any reform to Social Security and Medicare. 

Mr Romney’s team defends the feasibility of his plan by noting its similarity to the Bowles-Simpson commission proposal, which like Mr Romney lowers the top rate to 28% and pays for it by closing loopholes. But the comparison does not actually help Mr Romney’s case. First, unlike Mr Romney, Bowles-Simpson eliminates the preferential rate for capital gains and dividends. That is both a significant revenue-raiser and the principal reason the truly wealthy suffer most under their plan: the top 1% sees its after-tax income fall 7.8% and shoulder half the net increase in taxes. Under any plausible version of Mr Romney’s, the after-tax income of this group would rise. Second, it only lowers the corporate rate to 28% instead of Mr Romney’s 25% (from 35%). Third, Bowles-Simpson clearly hurts the middle class; the middle 60% of households see their after-tax income drop about 1.5% each. The reason is that the plan nukes almost all deductions, and replaces only a few with miserly tax credits that are worth less than the current deduction to most taxpayers. If Mr Romney wants to spare the middle class he will have to be much more generous than Bowles-Simpson when it comes to protecting their tax breaks. And there’s the rub: Mr Romney can be revenue neutral or he can spare the middle class but I don't see how he can do both. [More]

From the table above - which has been widely accepted as an accurate account of what tax expenditures cost, farmers should note certain items.

1. Exclusion of capital gains at death: This "step-up in basis" is a BIG deal - perhaps more important than the actual rate itself. It also looks to be one with a smaller consituency to fight for it. I think it is greatly at risk.
2. Capital gains: As discussed in the above article, the fact this is largely helpful to the 1% and few others makes it a tempting target. Again it's a big deal for farmers selling land after the recent runup.
3. Elimination of deduction for health insurance: Depending on the outcome for Obamacare, this could tempt many employers to drop group insurance for simple compensation. At the very least, it will undoubtedly push more of the cost to employees, although that is happening already.
4. Mortgage interest: I think this applies to homes (reported on Schedule A) - not interest reported on Schedule F, but it's the same 1099, so I could be wrong. [Update: probably not at risk unless a desire to include real estate investors in the revenue makes it a target]
5. 401K benefits: Not sure how many farmers do this when buying land has trounced these as retirement piggy-banks, but some did.

While it's hard to imagine enough Congresshumans anxious to attack these popular "loopholes", you can't get done what Romney has proposed without hitting many of them. So the bottom line is worrying about the Farm Bill is peanuts compared to the budget debate for my farm.

Prediction: tax cuts might happen, but eliminating enough tax breaks won't. 

The unexpected president, ctd...  

I'll let Josh Barro, whose conservative credentials are impeccable, say what I have struggled to comprehend about race and the right and this campaign:

There has been a clear strategic calculation here among Republican elites. Better to leverage or at least accept the racism of much of the Republican base than try to clean it up. I remember a moment in the 2008 campaign where John McCain argued with a voter who said that Obama was “an Arab.” This time around, either the candidates don’t care about standing up to racial misconceptions or have decided they can’t afford to.
And on a more substantive policy issue, you have Gingrich’s rejection of the idea that there is even a racial matter to discuss in the Martin case. You don’t have to assume that George Zimmerman is guilty of murder (Julian Sanchez has a good piece on this) to recognize that Trayvon Martin would likely to be alive today if he were white.
The question of what to do about that is complicated, but it’s clearly a public policy concern. Instead, Gingrich commits an error that is common on the Right—jumping from the fact that race relations have improved to a claim that black Americans no longer have special policy concerns worth discussing.
It’s disgraceful that Gingrich would call bringing up Trayvon Martin’s race disgraceful. It also undermines everything else that conservatives say about race, no matter how valid. How are Republicans supposed to be taken seriously when they say they understand black Americans’ policy needs when Newt Gingrich is spouting nonsense like this?
My challenge to conservatives who feel they get a bum rap on race is this. Stand up for yourself and your colleagues when you feel that a criticism is unfair. At the same time, criticize other conservatives who say racist things, cynically tolerate racism in the Republican base, or deny the mere existence of racial issues in America today. The conservative movement desperately needs self-policing on racial issues, if it ever hopes to have credibility on them. [More worth reading]

And at that, I'll let go of this thread.

The president, ctd...  

Thanks for the great comments. I'll respond in this separate post, as linking is a bear in the comments.

First:

"From VA":
1. For most objectors I know, it is more about the appropriate role and size of government. Not withstanding the many previous encroachments, if Obamacare stands, there is nothing in my life that the feds cannot dictate. The concept of limited government is gone completely and many of us find this a travesty.

2, Your own source says "The number of significant federal rules, defined as those costing more than $100 million, has gone up under Obama, with 129 approved so far, compared with 90 for Bush, 115 for President Bill Clinton and 127 for the first President Bush over the same period in their first terms." This is more than a 40% increase in the most burdensome regulations. Also, for aggies, think GIPSA, dust, child labor, and TMDL. I very definite pattern of increasing regulation impacting agriculture.

3. I have witnessed this administration "vetting" of very routine, perfunctory, commodity board appointments where they have indeed used Chicago tactics, and have confronted the most minor appointee with their record of campaign contributions.

4.I agree, no jamming.

5. I think it is not Obama as a person many aggies find repugnant, but it is his view of government and his belief that government always knows best that most of us reject.

Okay, in similar order:

1. Your objection to the mandate as THE line in the governmental size stand is typical.  It has been nicknamed the "broccoli argument"  as it requires an affirmative commercial action. There are two answers to this. First, we said the same thing about Kelo and imminent domain. I thought that was dumb decision as it trampled private property rights, but so far we haven't seen cities, etc. seizing land will-nilly. Second,

 The law’s critics, for instance, do not challenge rulings like Wickard vs. Filburn, which allowed Congress to forbid a farmer from growing his own wheat that he did not plan to sell. Of course, growing wheat for personal consumption is an elemental act of human civilization, a definitive act of a person who wishes to provide for himself and be left alone. Not coincidentally, some of history’s most monstrous tyrannies denied individuals the right to grow their own food unmolested – think of Stalin’s Russia, inducing a famine among the productive farmers of the Ukraine, who were forbidden from using their own time to grow their own food.

Indeed, if we imagine a reverse situation – in which conservatives were conceding the government the right to regulate “inactivity” but not “activity” – their hyperventilations over the perilous state of freedom in America would be more persuasive. The line between the laws legitimized by Wickard and real communist tyranny is actually quite thin. Instead they have managed to whip themselves into a frenzy by painting fantastical, concocted stories about the government forcing people to eat broccoli – as if they truly cannot imagine a legal or philosophical principle that would allow the government to enforce a health care mandate (that conservatives invented!) and not allow the government to force-feed broccoli to its population. [More]

2. Note the source (thanks for reading the link, BTW) does not compute any benefits, only costs. What does preventing another well blow-out count? The EPA and other regulators tackled some hard problems like finance reform that have already cost us billions. We can complain regulations cost us but as ethanol supporters like to shout, "Look at all the benefits!"  Regardless, I simply disagree with the perception there has been a "tsunami" of regulation. More, perhaps, but it is a matter of degree.
3. I think those type of tactics are now pretty standard across both parties, Look at how slow the Senate has been to confirm appointees.
4. N/A
5. I'm glad you are on a different e-mail spam list than me, VA. You might visit ag talk blogs or listen to Rush. I appreciate your objection is based on policy, but after three years of bad jokes when with other farmers, my opinion is as I stated.

But a truly insightful comment with which I agree followed (albeit mislocated):

Ed Arndt Rich. Co ND said...
John,

On Obama. I didn't vote for Obama but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I had hoped he would stop the shredding of the constitution started by George W. Bush with the Patriot Act. However,under Obama and his attorney general Eric Holder, the process has been accelerated. Under sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act the government can indefinitely detain terrorist suspects. The suspect has no right or opportunity to defend himself or make an attempt to refute the governments action. Are we to believe the government will never make a mistake? Think about that for a bit.

Now consider this. On Mar. 5th, in a speech at Northwestern University, Attorney General Eric Holder made the astounding statement (astounding to me at least)that the constitution guarantees due process of law, but it does not guarantee judicial process. For all of my adult life I had always believed that due process of law included a public trial before judge and jury. Not according to Holder. Under Holder's version due process becomes whatever the government says it is, not open to public or even congressional scrutiny. Holder's remarks were referring to the killing of Anwar al Awliki by drone strike, and various arguments can be made in defense of this action. However, the precedents set by Holder's speech are terrifying. How long until some other branch of government decides that it is not obligated to provide judicial process and instead provides whatever due process the government decides will suffice? Under this scenario, what we have commonly held to be constitutional guarantees become null and void.

These things have not been much reported in the mainstream media. Why? Is the media keeping it a secret? Or does the media think(I fear correctly) that the public is not interested?

You can google "Eric Holder's speech at Northwestern University" for background on this subject.

I was irate when habeus corpus was decimated under Bush, and am dumbfounded that Obama has doubled down on this insidious attack on personal liberty. What is more profoundly troubling is this is still not invasive enough for the Republican party excepting the sane voice of Ron Paul. They are cheering him [Obama] on!

This matter is far and away more devastating to me than Obamacare, but that is the issue that the public wants to debate. In fact, the public seems OK with killing suspected terrorists, even if they are American citizens, under the thinking I guess it wouldn't happen to someone named Phipps, of course.

Until you are targeted by the president to be killed (as just a suspect), I suppose.

The president we didn't expect...  

Obamacare (and yes, I guess that's what it will be called) has truly brought to light the myriad complaints of the right with his presidency. The comment below on a previous posts is helpful for my arguments about why these strong reactions exist.

 John, We sent them to Washington to repeal Obamacare and the massive Administrative regulations he put into effect day 1 along with being sickened by the Chicago tatics that HE brought to Wasington. I remember the "read it later" bills HE jamed thru w/o the "compromise" HE now wants. We are and will continue to pay for OBAMAS rotten leadership. He was the mistake.

Let me unpack this as evenly as I can, because "anon" shares a viewpoint I have heard frequently at farmer gatherings and in other conversations.

1. Repealing Obamacare: This remains the largest objection for most, I believe, yet it is rooted in remarkable confusion about what it does. Aside from the mandate, most of the major provisions - covering children until 26, guaranteed coverage, community rating, closing the "donut hole", comparison shopping, etc. - enjoy widespread popularity. The mandate itself will be very popular among health insurers should the law be upheld as it is one of the best ways to make make the other provisions affordable. The idea Obamacare is a government takeover is also unsupported by facts. It relies on private insurance but regulates how it will be packaged and sold. To the disappointment of many, there is no public option, which most associate with government intrusion.
2. There were no massive regulations passed on Day 1. At least, I can't find any. This is hyperbole that now passes for evidence. In fact, there is evidence the Obama administration is not keeping up with the regulations added by other administrations.   
3. Chicago tactics. Rep. Darrel Issa was widely expected to investigate every move by the White House to prove corruption, etc. He has struggled to make any news. Compared to previous administrations, this one does not stand out as remarkably worse, could even be rated better. There is no smoking gun despite unprecedented efforts by opponents. 
4. "Jamming through" legislation: I assume this means Obamacare, since it passed by one vote. First, this accusation is unfounded in reality. No president jams through legislation. Congress writes legislation in consultation with the White House, but even with a veto threat, the bills are Congressional products. If it passes by one vote in either house it is not jammed through - it is sent to the President like any other law. Many bills pass by the narrowest of margins. We call them laws. If the commenter refers to the party line nature of recent votes, I wonder if he/she would agree that no bill should pass without a vote from the other side, and propose an amendment to that effect. The 60-vote threshold (3/5) in the Senate is so hard to reach, it is very common for this to occur. As for pressure from leadership, this is normal practice and was used for Medicare D, the Iraq War, and other contentious bills like farm bills.
5. Finally, the tone of the comment, the capitalization of "HE", the argument by assertion rather than by fact or reason makes my point, I would suggest. It is Obama many despise, not his actions which have been surprisingly centrist.


Finally, it is no longer impossible to ignore the racist overtones in the opposition to Obama. It's out there. It is my belief that our nation was simply caught off-guard by a young, black President. He was not supposed to get the nomination and not supposed to be able to be elected, so when he arrived we had not prepared for the change.


For many it is a change too far. The second black President will be no big deal, but with the First, just like women at the Naval Academy, or Jackie Robinson, or countless other "firsts", we usually outlive the reaction. We don't adjust in real time or change many initial responses.


The commenter captures this "change weariness". As someone once remarked about globalization, "I don't have anything against it - it's just gone on too damn fast and too damn hard for too damn long". There is seldom a smooth pace to cultural shifts, but trying to pass off personalized animosity as well-reasoned policy arguments isn't working that well.

Tea regret...  

I have been mildly amazed at the anti-government ferocity in rural America, even while we were cashing many forms of government checks. I still think the majority of the virulent anti-Obama hatred (and that is a reluctant assessment) arises from who he is rather than his policies.

In fact, anyone could have seen how this would play out. With the Ryan budget, it has suddenly become undeniable.

It must have been a lot of fun to show up at meetings in the summer of 2010 and bash your sitting congressman or senator. No one knows how many video clips were shot of Tea Party members shouting down members of the U.S. House and Senate, some of whom had put their careers on the line for farmers.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak, and, for the first time in decades farmers are faced with the very real possibility of not having a new farm bill or much chance of an extension of the current legislation when the 2008 law expires later this year.

By now, most of you have seen reports of the new federal budget proposed by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee. The proposal would cut $33 billion from federal farm programs or about $10 billion more than the House and Senate Agriculture Committees proposed last fall.

Unlike previous years, this time the House of Representatives is filled with freshman members who have little or no sense of the purpose of farm programs or the stability they provide to agriculture. All most of them know is they think they have a mandate to cut federal spending. [More]

The curious thing for me is I am not alarmed by budget cuts to ag, so don't have a dog in this hunt, so to speak. But the Ryan budget is rapidly becoming the Republican budget, and as he is forced to fill in details, you can hear the gasps.

Of course, it is impossible to know what tax expenditures Ryan plans to eliminate; we can only guess. But it is worth knowing that just the top 6 tax expenditures account for more than half of the dollar cost of all tax expenditures. These include the exclusion for health insurance and the deduction for mortgage interest. Among those not in the top 6 are the deduction for charitable contributions and the deduction for state and local taxes.

In other words, it will be impossible to achieve Ryan’s revenue target without pretty much wiping the slate clean of every tax preference except for a handful of the most popular ones. This may be worth doing, but will be very difficult. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced tax expenditures by about 2.7 of GDP, according to the TPC. If it could be duplicated, that would only get Ryan to his absolute minimum level of revenues as a share of GDP. Getting to the upper end of his target range would require a tax reform one third larger.

In short, looking only at the tax side of Ryan’s plan, he is anticipating enactment of an extraordinarily ambitious tax reform on top of the most ambitious budget cutting effort ever enacted. He would sharply cut outlays for every major program except Social Security and national defense. Every governmental function one can think of would be virtually abolished except for Medicare, Social Security and defense. A key reason for the severity of these cuts, of course, is that Ryan would cut taxes at the same time he is cutting spending. To achieve balance with lower than projected revenues requires even larger cuts in spending. [More]

The harsh rhetoric of the last 3 years hasn't left the majority of farmers much room to maneuver on policy. These are THEIR representatives, whom they sent to Washington to mandate concealed carry, shut down the Fed, obstruct any compromise, and spot Muslims under every bush. And they may be about to send some more.

What did they expect?

There is some parallel here with raising pit bulls, but I won't go there.