The IHT reports:
House Democrats voted on Friday to approve a farm bill that would continue generous farmers' subsidies at a time of record crop prices, ignoring a veto threat and yowls of protest by Republicans over a tax provision that they said spoiled bipartisan support for the bill.
The bill passed, 231 to 191, with 19 Republicans joining 212 Democrats in favor, after a morning of rancorous debate and some hooting and howling that focused not on agriculture policy but on the tax provision inserted to pay for a $4 billion increase in food stamps.
Rep. Bobby Jindal was among the 19 Republicans who voted for this monstrous $286 billion Farm Bill that provides welfare for farmers. Jindal said he was "pleased" and "proud" to support the measure, which would raise taxes by billions to pay for food stamps, incentivize illegal immigration, subsidize ethanol, broaden the Gulf Coast "Dead Zone", and distribute checks to wealthy corporate "farmers" like ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper and Caterpillar.
You can imagine the outrage among Louisiana's conservative bloggers at Jindal's betrayal of party and principle. Here's a small sampling of quotes from the resulting firestorm:
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*crickets chirping*
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It's puzzling. I would have expected someone in the blogosphere or the media to comment on Jindal's vote for the farm bill. Doesn't it seem odd that just a few days after Bobby Jindal declared war "against out of control government spending", he "proudly" supported a $286 billion welfare bill to corporate farmers? Isn't there a natural tension there begging for commentary? It practically writes itself, I think.
It's interesting that Jindal would go so far as to use the term "war" to describe his anti-spending principles. That's pretty bold rhetoric, especially for a politician who never served in the military and whose only "wartime" experience is limited to the "spiritual warfare" he observed while demons attacked his best friend. I would think Jindal would do well to explain his position on the Iraq War before declaring a host of new "wars" against spending and corruption... etc. But the media hasn't really forced him to explain his view. So, as the grinding conflict in Iraq enters its fifth year, we still don't know precisely where Jindal stands, because he refuses to fully explain his position and account for his pro-war voting record. He has previously said that he is against "nation-building", and recently said our troops are faced with an "impossible task" in Iraq. Yet, when Jindal finds time to actually vote on the issue, he commits himself to Bush's dream of a "sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq", and he votes to escalate our involvement over there. How can he possibly explain this? Who will force him to do so? All the available evidence at this point supports the view that Jindal wants to have it both ways on Iraq. Similarly, I believe the evidence will also show that Jindal wants to "have it both ways" on his newly-declared war on government spending, as well. Exhibit A is his vote in support of the 2007 Farm Bill. Let's examine it.
Friday, Bush's Agriculture Secretary chucked a prepared speech and talked instead about the Farm Bill's passage in the House of Representatives. The Secretary had some very direct words for the proponents of the Farm Bill, who inserted a last minute "tax hike" which enraged (most) Republicans:
It is time to stand firmly, in my judgment, on the high road and to do the right thing for our farmers and our ranchers.So, yes, the Republicans are outraged by the additon of billions in new taxes to the bill. But shouldn't they be outraged by the overall cost, instead? Let's look back at a news article about the 2002 Farm Bill, to get a sense of how bloated this red state welfare bill has become:
Now that means standing firm on our commitments to fiscal responsibility and policies that will truly protect the safety net for American farmers and their ability to export their products into the foreign marketplace. We heard echoed on the House floor last night that it was a sad day for American agriculture. The ranking member of the House Ag Committee last night spoke of betrayal and described a well that had been poisoned.
Thankfully, many House members refused to drink from that poisoned well. They stood on their principles. They said, "no" to a provision crafted under a cloak of secrecy and then presented in the 11th hour. These members rejected the effort to paint another bull's eye on the back of the American farmer in the form of a $7 billion tax hike.
Now why do I describe it this way? Because, never in the history of farm programs have farmers supported higher taxes on another industry to fund their own farm programs. Never. The Chamber of Commerce and others have wasted no time in speaking out against any attempt to balance the Farm Bill budget on the backs of businesses and American jobs, and I believe very rightfully so.
I can think of no quicker way to threaten the safety net than by asking someone else to pay extra for it. Courageous House members recognized that threat, and they have fought against it.
President Bush signed a 10-year, $190 billion farm bill Monday that expands subsidies to growers, turning aside criticism from fellow Republicans who called the measure a budget-busting step backward in agriculture planning.
"It's not a perfect bill, I know that. But you know, no bill ever is," Bush said with a chuckle. "There's no such thing as a perfect bill. Or otherwise, I'd get to write every one of them."
The bill rains federal largess on farm-oriented states that will be campaign battlegrounds this fall, potentially helping Bush in his quest to win back control of the Senate for the GOP — and giving him a chance to rack up IOUs for his own 2004 re-election effort.
It increases spending by nearly 80% over the cost of existing programs at a time when government and private analysts are projecting a budget deficit this year of $100 billion or more. The president has been calling on lawmakers to show fiscal restraint.
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The president had complained that more subsidies would cause overproduction, worsening the plight of farmers. Some Republicans implored him to veto it even after the signing ceremony was scheduled.
"I would love to see him veto it. It is a budget buster," Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., said on Fox News Sunday.
My how the fiscal goalposts have moved! Five years ago, conservatives viewed the $190 billion 2002 Farm Bill as a "budget buster". Today, the $286 billion Farm Bill was largely acceptable to the GOP until the Democrats tacked on a few billion in extra taxes. That's what prompted the GOP to abandon ship. Even so, this tax hike and GOP abandonment did give plenty of political cover to spending "jihadists" who wished to oppose the measure. In other words, a true fiscal warrior could justify a "no" vote on the farm bill by citing the runaway spending, or the increased taxes, or both. And such a warrior would be joined by nearly the entire GOP, and perhaps also the President. However, despite his recent rhetoric, Bobby Jindal didn't want to make a principled stand against an enormous spending bill that included new taxes. That wasn't a political battle this fiscal warrior wanted to fight. Instead, Bobby Jindal was "pleased" and "proud" to join the Dems, and cowtow to Big Sugar. See, in the 2002 Farm Bill, Big Sugar made out like bandits, and they wanted those subsidies to continue. Earlier this month, the WSJ cited studies showing that "more than half of the $1.9 billion sugar program lines the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of plantation owners." How Sweet It Is!
The Farm Bill is a fiscal monstrosity that, among other things, subsidizes millionaire farmers during "the most prosperous era American agriculture has seen in decades as crop prices and farm income approach or set record highs". The Farm Bill also has a ton of pork. Endless pork. There's so much pork in it that even the National Pork Producers Council was satisfied with the bill.
Beyond the Farm Bill's massive spending, and pork, and higher taxes, is the environmental impact its ethanol subsidies have on Louisiana fisheries. Recently there was a fine editorial in the Des Moines Register titled "Ethanol may fuel dead zone". It took an unblinking look at how the farm bill will likely increase the fertilizer runoffs that contribute to the oxygen-starved waters off the Louisiana coast. (The Dead Zone is about 8,000 square miles-- only about the size of New Jersey!). The editorial cites a draft report by a panel of scientists calling for a 45% reduction in nitrogen runoffs, and a 40% reduction in phosphorous runoffs into the Mississippi.
[The] report says that biofuels will likely make the problem worse, because of the increase in corn acreage and use of nitrogen fertilizer needed to keep with the demand for ethanol.
Encouraging more production of corn-based ethanol, in fact, "could nullify other efforts" to reduce the dead zone, the scientists say.
"They're calling for a larger reduction (in pollutants) at the same time that the rush to corn-based ethanol is moving in the other direction," said Don Scavia, a University of Michigan scientist who served on the original advisory board that completed its work in 2000.
The report calls for a wholesale overhaul of agricultural programs, away from crop subsidies and into conservation measures that will reduce runoff.
The Gulf's dead zone is an oxygen-deprived area, nearly devoid of shrimp, fish and other sea life, that appears every summer. It varies in size from 3,000 to more than 7,700 square miles, an area approaching the size of New Jersey. The oxygen loss occurs when high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus cause excessive algae.
The government's goal is to reduce the average size of the dead zone to 2,000 square miles by 2015.
Farm groups had hoped that the latest scientific review would... play down the role of nitrogen in causing the dead zone and instead pin the issue on phosphorus. Instead, the study showed that both chemicals would have to be addressed, and raised the new concerns about biofuels. By one estimate in the report, the expanded corn acreage needed to support the ethanol industry could increase nitrogen runoff by 33 percent.
The new Farm Bill heavily subsidizes corn, which is increasingly used for ethanol (which is also subsidized-- to the tune of over 51 cents per gallon). And Congress has ordered refiners to double their ethanol production in the next eight years.
What's so infuriating about Jindal's support for these harmful farm subsidies is his rank hypocrisy on the Dead Zone issue, which I've previously discussed. In short, earlier this year, Jindal amended an Interior appropriations bill so that $5 million would be allocated to study the Dead Zone. Then, he voted against it, and justified his Nay vote on fiscal grounds. It was a $27.6 billion appropriations bill, and was only $1.9 billion more than Bush requested. However, that was apparently too much for fiscal warrior Jindal. After voting against the bill, he cited his no vote as an example of his fiscal rectitude in a blog post. He decried the politicians who are "spending money that we don't have" and said "It’s time to end this fiscal insanity". Then, in the very same blog post, Jindal discusses his strong support for reauthorizing and "improving" the 2002 Farm Bill. I guess, in Jindal's mind, the 2007 Farm Bill featured about $100 billion in "improvements" over the '02 version. I wonder if one of those improvements was increasing the billions of dollars in Farm Subsidies that go to ... dead people. Talk about "insanity".
And now, Jindal has the gallstones to defy his party and vote for a bloated Farm Bill that will exacerbate the very problem his previous amendment would've addressed. He opposed an appropriation bill containing his own amendment because it was a couple billion too much, and then supported a flawed Farm Bill that may approach $300 billion in costs by the time the Senate gets done with it.
So, if the Farm Bill is Jindal's opening salvo in the "War on Government Spending", what does that tell us? How does the Farm Bill fit into his strategy of success over "insane" spending? Is Jindal waging war on spending like Bush has waged war on Iraq? Is President Bush Jindal's idea of a wartime leader?
Beyond the spending, the taxes, and the environmental costs in the Farm Bill, there's also an immigration angle. I personally don't view immigration as a top tier issue, but most Louisiana conservatives passionately disagree with my analysis. Therefore, they might be interested in a recent article by Iain Murray, who uses the Farm Bill's ethanol subsidies and crop confiscations to make a point about how the Farm Bill incentivizes illegal immigration. Murray informs us that up to half of the yearly raisin crop is confiscated by the government, in order to insure scarcity and higher prices. He writes:
Raisin farming is the single most labor-intensive activity in North America. Each year, during August and September, farmers hire 40,000 to 50,000 workers, many undocumented, to pick the grapes and leave them to dry in the sun. Confiscating the fruit of their labor encourages further illegal immigration, a major strain on the U.S. welfare system, by creating demand for labor to pick a product that never reaches the U.S. marketplace.
Moreover, the subsidy inflates the price for grapes and raisins that do reach the market. Again, it doesn’t look like much of a deal for taxpayers and consumers.
There are some winners. For ethanol, it is the agricultural giants of Archers Daniel Midland and Cargill. For raisins, it is the big cooperatives like Sunkist. They profit handsomely from guaranteed returns and significant barriers to competition. Meanwhile, taxpayers and other businesses suffer... and Mexico and Central America are relieved of the pressure to reform their economies by an inflated demand for agricultural labor in America.
And just like Jindal's profile in cowardice on the important CAFTA vote, Jindal made sure that he wouldn't be the deciding vote on the gargantuan farm bill. The AP reported:
The tax provision posed a dilemma for many farm-state Republicans, who were loath to vote for what their party and the Bush administration derided as a tax increase, but eager to support an agriculture bill championed by their farmers.
Some, like Reps. Dennis Rehberg of Montana, and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, waited until the Democrats gained the votes necessary for passage to cast their votes in support of the bill.
Why would a principled man like Jindal repeatedly hold his vote back on consequential legislation, like CAFTA and the Farm Bill? Why does he wait until the issue is decided before casting his (meaningless) vote?
Now, there are plenty of arguments on the pro side of the farm bill. But none of them involve a "war on spending" or conservative fiscal policy. After all, it's an expensive, flawed welfare bill that hikes taxes and rewards wealthy corporate farmers with government handouts. The Farm Bill subsidizes industries that rely on illegal immigrants, and promotes the use of fertilizers that are carried down the Mississippi river and starve Lousiana's fisheries of oxygen. How can a conservative warrior opposed to insane spending support that?
Finally, Bobby Jindal described the Farm Bill to be the most important piece of legislation to move through Congress this year. He proudly supported it-- after he was assured his vote wouldn't be decisive. Yet by any conservative standard, he's on the wrong side of the issue. But where is the disappointment in the conservative Louisiana commentariat? Doesn't Jindal's abandonment of conservative principles merit some discussion?
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Update: last night the Conservative Cajun wrote a blurb about Jindal's "questionable vote".
