From Washington Straight: Farm Blues

Hardshell conservatives here tend to take a jaundiced view of the vaunted plight of the farmers. They sit in the Stockman section of the budget bleachers, cheering when the OMB Director urged that American taxpayers ought not to “re-finance bad debt incurred by consenting adults,” referring to the foolish land speculation of some farmers in the high-inflation days of the Seventies. Certainly, in theory bailouts are bad form, and we ought to encourage everyone to practice capitalism as well as preach it. But a principle is a principle is a principle. “If Stockman wants free-enterprise agriculture,” Senator Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) notes trenchantly, “he’s got to want free enterprise at the Pentagon, more competitive bidding there, and less subsidizing of the defense industry.”

Also, before letting the farmer-debtors go down the tubes, conservative true believers might want to take a hard look at the candidates that farmers are electing these days throughout the heartland—i.e., liberal, populist Democrats. Tom Harkin thrashed conservative incumbent Roger Jepsen in Iowa’s 1984 Senate race. True, Jepsen had problems of a non-agrarian nature, but, more importantly, he failed to portray himself as a) a helper of farmers and b) a dissident from the Reagan Administration, as Republicans Grassley, James Abdnor (S.D.), and Mark Andrews (N.D.) have. Senator Harkin, on the other hand, milked the farm Angst and continues to do so, recently saying that Iowa was “literally dying,” and that if David Stockman ever chose to visit the Hawkeye State, he would be “lynched” on sight. Other less fiery but no less skillful politicians of the Harkin school include liberal, populist Democratic congressmen Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Thomas Daschle (S.D.), Richard Durbin and Lane Evans (Ill.), Berkley Bedell (Iowa), and Timothy Penny (Minn.). In each of their congressional districts Mr. Reagan won, yet each district returned its Democratic congressman to office by (almost uniformly) larger margins.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Hardshell conservatives here tend to take a jaundiced view of the vaunted plight of the farmers. They sit in the Stockman section of the budget bleachers, cheering when the OMB Director urged that American taxpayers ought not to “re-finance bad debt incurred by consenting adults,” referring to the foolish land speculation of some farmers in the high-inflation days of the Seventies. Certainly, in theory bailouts are bad form, and we ought to encourage everyone to practice capitalism as well as preach it. But a principle is a principle is a principle. “If Stockman wants free-enterprise agriculture,” Senator Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) notes trenchantly, “he’s got to want free enterprise at the Pentagon, more competitive bidding there, and less subsidizing of the defense industry.”

Also, before letting the farmer-debtors go down the tubes, conservative true believers might want to take a hard look at the candidates that farmers are electing these days throughout the heartland—i.e., liberal, populist Democrats. Tom Harkin thrashed conservative incumbent Roger Jepsen in Iowa’s 1984 Senate race. True, Jepsen had problems of a non-agrarian nature, but, more importantly, he failed to portray himself as a) a helper of farmers and b) a dissident from the Reagan Administration, as Republicans Grassley, James Abdnor (S.D.), and Mark Andrews (N.D.) have. Senator Harkin, on the other hand, milked the farm Angst and continues to do so, recently saying that Iowa was “literally dying,” and that if David Stockman ever chose to visit the Hawkeye State, he would be “lynched” on sight. Other less fiery but no less skillful politicians of the Harkin school include liberal, populist Democratic congressmen Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Thomas Daschle (S.D.), Richard Durbin and Lane Evans (Ill.), Berkley Bedell (Iowa), and Timothy Penny (Minn.). In each of their congressional districts Mr. Reagan won, yet each district returned its Democratic congressman to office by (almost uniformly) larger margins.