05/07/2002 Archived Entry: "Farmer welfare, McCain, the Senate & 2004"

Bush has absolutely no fiscal discipline with which to reach back on to restrain Congress. Can there be a worse fiscal nightmare than a "tax-cut-and-spend" Republican? The latest is the laughable corporate & farmer welfare spending spree called the Farm Bill. Iowa received more than triple this year than during Clinton's last budget, $1.7 Billion. And should we be surprised to see Texas jumping quite a few slots to #3 at 1.15 Billion?

According to the analysis, Illinois would receive the second highest amount of subsidies after Iowa at $1.6 billion, followed by Minnesota ($1.16 billion), Texas, Nebraska ($1.12 billion) and Kansas ($1.04 billion).

I'm thinking, isn't California a pretty big agricultural producer? Like the 7th largest economy in the world? Kinda strange that they don't get any? Understand, they are a "blue" state, and like other "blue" states, they are picking up the tab for the "red" states corporate & farmer welfare.

Harkin, an Iowa Democrat up for re-election this year, gets his poll-tested words straight from Faux news: "It also shows that all regions of the country benefit from the new farm bill, which is a testament to balanced and fair approach we took."

Well, Bush can always point to his farmer welfare program while attempting to get elected in 2004. This supposed strength of his is his ultimate weakness. When McCain voted against the tax-cut, I think he sensed that voting that way would be of more use to him in the long-run, most likely realizing that it was a loaded budget buster and deficit inducing tax-cut. That would be his opening in 2004 as a Democrat. Republicans don't give a hoot about fiscal responsibility, they are in the midst of trafficking all of the gov't subsidies into their districts and states anyway, especially with military expenditures.

What McCain could to do in 2004 is to go to Iowa and expose the crock of fiscal irresponsibility there to the rest of the nation during the primaries. What are the unions going to do, vote for Bush? Maybe some would, but not as many moderates that would choose McCain over Bush. I think McCain could alter his abortion stance enough to placate to Democrats, let's say he chooses a pro-choice woman as his VP. I hope he runs in 2004, in what way, who knows. One thing that might endear him to the Democrats is for the Republicans to regain the majority later this year, and for McCain to then switch to the Democratic Party, ala Jeffords switch to being Independent, but going all the way, becoming a Democrat. I think the Democrats are pretty assured of maintaining control in the Senate, they seemingly have two Republicans, Chaffee and McCain, in the bank to draw upon at some point, McCain, if he is waiting for that opportune time to step forth as the Democratic alternative to Bush, might find this the right sort of circumstances. Combine that with running on a fiscal responsibility platform that reforms gov't, amidst the deep red spending of Bush, and it's hard to see him losing.