{"id":10643,"date":"2013-07-16T00:35:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T07:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10643"},"modified":"2013-07-16T00:35:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T07:35:41","slug":"krugman-on-the-farm-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/16\/krugman-on-the-farm-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Krugman on the Farm Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman is one of those whose depth of knowledge on the economy is so great that I seldom find myself in disagreement with him.  Once again, he did not disappoint, as he explained the Republican position on the Farm Bill, and the extreme level of hypocrisy therein.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"16Steal\"Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We\u2019ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We\u2019ve even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we\u2019re talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

The occasion for these observations is, as you may have guessed, the monstrous farm bill<\/a> the House passed last week. <\/p>\n

For decades, farm bills have had two major pieces. One piece offers subsidies to farmers; the other offers nutritional aid to Americans in distress, mainly in the form of food stamps (these days officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). <\/p>\n

Long ago, when subsidies helped many poor farmers, you could defend the whole package as a form of support for those in need. Over the years, however, the two pieces diverged. Farm subsidies became a fraud-ridden program<\/a> that mainly benefits corporations and wealthy individuals. Meanwhile food stamps became a crucial part of the social safety net. <\/p>\n

So House Republicans voted to maintain farm subsidies \u2014 at a higher level than either the Senate or the White House proposed \u2014 while completely eliminating food stamps from the bill<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something like this: \u201cYou\u2019re personally free to help the poor. But the government has no right to take people\u2019s money\u201d \u2014 frequently, at this point, they add the words \u201cat the point of a gun\u201d \u2014 \u201cand force them to give it to the poor.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people\u2019s money at the point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the wealthy<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Photo credit: Caf\u00e9 Press<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

Republicans are Robin Hood in reverse.  All their economic policies are designed to take from the poor to give to the rich.  Krugman says that it has gone beyond just economics to mean-spiritedness, and I have to agree.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman is one of those whose depth of knowledge on the economy is so great that I seldom find myself in disagreement with him.  Once again, he did not disappoint, as he explained the Republican position on the Farm Bill, and the extreme level of hypocrisy therein. Something terrible has happened to the soul […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}