Conrad: Just Don’t Cut My Programs!
Prompted by my blog on Senator Kent Conrad’s Task Force to reduce the federal deficit, my assistant Amy Mandler dug up some interesting information on the good senator.
Conrad has nurtured his image as a “deficit hawk” for decades, but when it comes to subsidies for millionaire farmers he demands that the federal gravy keep flowing.
Earlier this year, for example, President Obama proposed cutting one type of farm subsidy (“direct payments”) for farmers earning over $500,000 a year. I suspect that about 95 percent of Americans would support that tiny nod toward fiscal sanity and deficit reduction. But not Senator Conrad, who helped shoot the proposal down. See here and here.
You Don’t Say
President Obama recently indicated that he would cut the fiscally irresponsible (yet minimally market distorting) direct payments that flow to farmers regardless of their production. An outcry from farming groups has, predictably, ensued.
Just as predictably: “A source in the administration says the proposal is being reconsidered because of the opposition it has received.“
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