Earlier today, the House passed the Farm/Food Stamp bill boondoggle. Sadly, only 63 Republicans opposed it.
The bill locks in Obama’s food stamp regime, creates and expands
numerous Soviet-style agriculture subsidies and conservation
regulations, and authorizes more spending on the biofuels fiasco. House
Republicans got rolled in the conference committee by Senate Democrats,
yet almost 75% of the conference dutifully followed leadership.
Click here for a color-coded spreadsheet of the GOP vote.
There is also one other point overlooked in this bill – earmarks.
You will notice that some good members voted for this terrible bill. In
particular, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) voted for the bill!
Why?
Well, knowing Massie he wasn’t too enthralled about the underlying
piece of legislation. Presumably, he supported the bill because a
provision to allow a pilot program growing industrial hemp was inserted
into the legislation. And, guess who is now bragging about his involvement in this form of logrolling? That’s right, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Thanks to Mitch McConnell, he made it easier to grow government and
increase spending. Industrial hemp is very popular in the state, and
what better way to buy off votes than by inserting this provision into
the bill. While this provision might not meet the technical definition
of an earmark, it has all of the harmful characteristics of one.
We’ve always noted that the problem with earmarks or extraneous
provisions is not the “small potatoes” expenditure. The problem is that
the $500,000 earmark is then used to buy off a conservative vote for a
$1 trillion omnibus, farm bill or some other terrible transformational
legislation. The earmarks are used as the magic “grease” to garner
majority support for big-government legislation. Once we reinstate the
practice of earmarking, we will never be able to mobilize a majority
within the Conference to oppose any big-government legislation. Most of
them will be seduced into supporting bad legislation through personal
earmarks for their districts. This is the “multiplying factor” of
earmarks.
This hemp provision is a superlative example of how Mitch McConnell
and others quietly enable the growth of government. If this is
something that is necessary and popular then pass it in a separate
bill. Placing it in a massive welfare/subsidy bill only helps advance
the liberal agenda. Would McConnell and others have supported Obamacare
if it had a hemp provision attached? We’d hate to see what finds its
way into the immigration bill!
It is precisely because of leaders like McConnell and the use of
logrolling provisions that we are stuck in the situation we are in
today.
(Click link below to read more)
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- Judy Chaffee
- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
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