Project Logic Ga

The Congress today is a mess and it will take dramatic changes to fix it.  I can’t believe that the multi-year Farm Bill can’t get passed.  Are you kidding me?  When I worked on the Hill, they could almost voice vote this important bill but now the hard left and hard right are basically too hard.  Compromising moderates/centrists are nowhere to be found. Hell, compromise is a dirty word in D.C. these days.                

The Farm Bill was once a seven year act that authorized most USDA programs and operations. It’s vital because everyone needs a safe and affordable food supply.  Big commodities like wheat, corn and cotton would receive “assistance” so farmland was happy and feeding assistance programs would generate support from urban legislators.  Actually, WIC, the School Lunch/Breakfast Program, supplemental commodities for seniors and the needy, and Food Stamps helped the farmland and cities at the same time because farmers could have additional markets for their products.

With the recent Farm Bill debacle, the hardline left protested $20 billion in cuts that hardline righties wanted in Food Stamps.  Don’t get me started on all the biblical references to helping the poor or the general idea that too much assistance can make people softer…weak.

My thoughts go to the old Fram oil filter ad that said “you can pay me now or you can pay me later.”  Hungry kids can’t learn at school.  Teens looking at starving siblings might turn to drug selling and really cost the public money.  Children with poor nutrition are sickly and cost billions in health care. On the other hand, the hard right argues that people shouldn’t have kids until they can afford them.  It is fascinatingly ironic to see fat kids on Food Stamps.  I have a niece who told me that she stopped by the store to get a few items on a budget near the end of the month (bread and cold cuts)…she attended college in the ACC.  A young mother in front of her in the line was buying spendy seafood with food stamps.  So, my smart mouth kin said, “you’ll welcome” under her breath. 

Congress’s approval rating is at a record low and members seem more concerned about catering to special interest groups than conferring with colleagues about improving our nation.  The best families in America are those with limited involvement with government.  Midwestern famers with Scandinavian roots simply put the seed in ground, cultivate crops and then go to market. 

The future of my community would be brighter if we trained kids to do it without the government.  We need a new crop of politicians who would say that.  When the far right is busy cutting federal spending on poor people, they should get their friends to look at governmental funds for corporate welfare.  In some ways, we are all feeding on the government.