In 4/4/09’s The Oregonian, two adjacent articles are “Gates readies defense budget overhaul” and “ Obama’s budget: Strict farm subsidy cuts face battle”.
The first says Gates will explain the comprehensive vision behind the defense overhaul before sending the budget into the system. The second says that Congress sees no chance for the farm subsidy cuts in Obama’s budget. Congressional Democrats want to adopt Obama’s new priorities, but won’t fight for the savings. Countless Oregonian articles quote the Budget Office’s and other analysts’ criticisms of the expenses over reductions in Obama’s budget. The whole idea of Obama’s promise to cut government programs that weren’t working in favor of new reforms for the future means that he should take the farm subsidy issue to the people, as well as Gates’ budget, to explain how important the savings are. The arguments in the farm article about the profitability of “medium-sized” farms misses the systemic point that government always has subsidies going that make some activities profitable only because the people are paying some of the expenses. Congress and journalists just don’t get that their criticisms of both additions and cuts are exactly the problem with “Washington”.
The President must highlight how we need to change the incentives for businesses and whole industries – to ramp down decades-long subsidies of what we want to stop doing as we start ramping up subsidies for what we do want. The old subsidies of industrial soybeans and corn and centralized food production have made obesity-promoting less-healthful foods artificially cheaper than wholesome regional food. It’s the same system as the decades of mass subsidies to the gas-based transportation system, making it appear to be expensive to get a greener system going. Of course the old subsidized industries and way of doing business will get hurt (purposefully gradually), just as the auto industry is being painfully dragged into changing, but we must break the farm and auto industries’ addiction to subsidies just the same. Workers all over American are having to change and of course it’s painful. Bringing real change to Washington means that Congress must be made to stop paying for the old ways of doing business. Farming and energy and transportation and defense are all comprehensive systems; the President has to get us to recognize that the government has all along been mis-targetting its subsidies and must turn it around despite the screams of industries that must change the business to employ people differently.
An interesting article on "How the Arizona senator doomed his own global warming legislation with billions in nuclear subsidies" forces us to ask the question: why would McCain, who says he abhors project-specific funding and directed government money meant to line the pockets of regions or entities specifically, be fighting to give billions of dollars to the nuclear energy, especially knowing that it would kill legislation he says he supports?
While it seemed the legislation would help the nuclear industry do better in a market with new ground-rules, McCain wanted to give money directly to the private firms themselves:
In meetings with McCain's staff, environmental lobbyists argued the obvious points, according to Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council: what to do with nuclear waste, the need to prevent nuclear proliferation, the problem with security at nuclear facilities. They noted that legislation restricting greenhouse emissions in and of itself would create a competitive advantage for nuclear energy companies. They made no headway, so the enviros appealed to Lieberman and his staff. "Lieberman didn't seem to care for this provision," one of the green lobbyists remembers, "but he needed McCain, and McCain was pushing hard" for the nuclear subsidies.
Why McCain was so devoted to these private interests, why he seemed to give equal weight to feeding private industry with free money and combatting climate change, which he had begun to think of as a security, economic and quality-of-life risk to his own state, remains in question.
In 2005, after the climate bill's failure, McCain and Lieberman introduced similar legislation, this time with the subsidies written into the original language. McCain declared "I am a a green" and said environmental objections to nuclear energy and the severe risks posed by its waste products were "wrongheaded", insisting that legislation to reduce carbon emissions should also include money directed to the nuclear industry.
According to Mother Jones:
Several Democratic senators who had backed McCain's original legislation—Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)—defected, and McCain picked up no new Republicans. (Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both voted for it.) "The staff didn't fully appreciate how much opposition there would be to the nuclear provision," Wicke says, adding, "I could say it was a bit of miscalculation.... It did stymie this climate change legislation." After collecting 44 supporters for the first bill, McCain had lost ground.
McCain was almost single-handedly responsible for killing a vital emissions reductions bill, and he did so fighting stubbornly for directed payments to private business for which no one could find a valid explanation. He also angrily told environmentally-oriented renewable energy proponents that renewables would never supply more than 1% to 2% of US energy needs. The US government had found as early as 1991 that wind from three states alone could —if properly developed— provide for all consumer electricity use, and 12 years later, the state of the art was such that the same hypothetical grid would cover all US energy demand.
McCain's position was and is out of touch with scientific and economic fact, and his allegiance to providing easy money to an environmentally dangerous, economically unsustainable industry smacks of the very politics of suspect gifts he claims to oppose. The degree of arrogance and stubbornness in fighting for the subsidies is only highlighted by the fact that he continues to proclaim himself to be an heroic crusader against such efforts, especially focused on how they contribute to killing much needed legislation.
President Bush is lifting the executive ban against new off-shore drilling ventures—a ban initiated years ago by President Poppy; and a ban fiercely supported by brother Jeb all the while he was Governor of Florida.
Why should American taxpaying consumers allow more coastal drilling, by American Oil Companies, when we get no direct price benefit from American production? Every barrel of oil that American Oil Companies produce is sold on the world market to the highest bidder. These unpatriotic sleaze balls even charge the U.S. Military +$4.00/gallon. Yet, our government gives these pathetic price-gouging, pirates billions of dollars in subsidies!!! Why should we allow these unscrupulous bandits to drill off our coasts? Even Texas billionaire oil-man T. Boone Pickens says we can’t drill our way out of this addiction. How stupid can we be???
If Congress is willing to venture into these troubled waters, then there must be consumer-friendly pre-conditions for any new off shore drilling agreements. For example:
1. The IMMEDIATE elimination of all existing congressional subsidies to the Oil Companies.
2. An IMMEDIATE congressional subsidy, in comparable total value, of consumer retail gasoline prices (e.g. a “contra” Federal gas tax).
3. An IMMEDIATE 20% reduction, from current market, for purchases made by the Federal Government for National Security/Strategic Reserves, and for Department of Defense/Military Operations.
Congress should NOT pass any legislation allowing new off shore drilling, WITHOUT guarantees of IMMEDIATE consumer relief—period!
There's a very interesting shell game being played with food these days. Under agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, developing nations are prohibited from subsidizing local farmers. In the meantime, farmers in the US and EU receive substantial subsidies, making it cheaper to export food to the Developing World than to grow it there for local consumption. Third World farmers are then encouraged to grow export crops (out of season fruits, flowers, etc.)
This is all changing with the advent of $100+/barrel oil. It will no longer be possible, even with agricultural subsidies, to grow affordable food here and ship it elsewhere for consumption by low income individuals, not that that fact will change the minds or the behavior of those invested in the current system. We can either deal with this rationally or experience decades of horrendous suffering, an Apocalpyse, if you will.
