Senator Bill Brady of Bloomington sent out a letter to the editor, I’m assuming to several papers, that the PJS ran this morning. In it, he shows unwavering support for Fred Thompson (pictured, in the outfit we’d all be going back to if he were elected). Thompson is currently back on his yacht in Florida reading scripts. A vast majority of the country is happy about this fact.
Anyway, the Senator says in the letter that he supported Thompson’s “common sense conservative values”. So what exactly did Mr. Thompson stand for? You really couldn’t tell from his campaign, because it imploded very quickly after he finally announced he was running.
But if you’d like to learn more about Mr. Thompson, David Broder’s recent column showed what many would feel were some pretty ugly things (actually, almost everybody except Vonster) about the actor/former Senator.
According to Broder, Thompson did indeed have some pretty strong opinions on things. Well, as long as they were off the record:
We visited for two hours and he answered every question, outlining plans for a campaign that would be notable for its boldness. Repeatedly, he emphasized that the only reason he saw to run was to raise issues that the other candidates were too timid to address. Those issues, he said, included the need to expand military manpower and increase the Pentagon budget, while attacking the “unaffordable” entitlement programs that dominate domestic spending.
Thompson was particularly critical of farm subsidies, and when I asked if he were really going to take that message to Iowa, he said, “Yes, but I’d like to keep that off the record [emphasis added] until I announce out there.” I agreed to omit that detail from my column, but reported that he was going to enter the race with rhetorical guns blazing, and that was his reason for running.
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Obviously, Thompson never got around to mentioning that little tidbit. Increasing military spending was already bad enough, but do Reaganesque damage to family farms? No matter what one thinks of subsidies, bankrupting farms -while ensuring that Halliburton has a better bottom line - would not really play well in the Midwest.Â
People who supported Mr. Thompson need to check out what the guy was really about. I’m thinking Mr. Brady may have just opened the door for his next opponent to bring up the fact that an Illinois politician from outside of Chicago would rather see farmers and social security and medicare gutted in favor of spending more on our bloated Pentagon budget. Note: I said bloated budget, not bloated military. We could still have the same military, probably even a better one, for far less money than we spend now if we simply  curbed the idiotic spending, got rid of no-bid contracts, and held Halliburton’s feet to the fire on overcharging the government. But that’s for another post.
Anyway, bottom line, Senator Brady…ouch! on this letter. I like Senator Brady, he’s a good guy. But I’d be careful being too big a supporter of what proved to be a very scary candidate who, fortunately, is out of the race.
4 responses so far ↓
1
Billy Dennis
// Feb 2, 2008 at 6:00 pm
BJ: Call me ASAP!
2
slbill
// Feb 3, 2008 at 11:33 am
BJ sez: “…Reaganesque damage to family farms”
I sez: I already disproved that myth several months (more than a year?) ago on your blog, here.
3
BJ Stone
// Feb 3, 2008 at 12:39 pm
No, you didn’t. Not even close.
There’s this:
Next, on to the S&L crisis and a laundry list of bad things that happened on Reagan’s watch: “Banking was another major area of deregulation, the disastrous consequences of which were to become clear after Mr. Reagan left office in the savings and loan scandals that could cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars….there were more farm foreclosures in the Reagan years than at any time since the Depression….”
from this:
http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2004/0607.asp
There’s this:
Farm foreclosures rose dramatically, and the crisis had a ripple effect, negatively impacting the manufacture and sale of farm machinery, seed and fertilizer. Rural banks went into receivership. Rural communities suffered in other ways; as more and more farmers were forced out of business, small town enterprises saw their profits plummet. In 1986, the Minnesota Agriculture Department calculated that every farm loss wiped out three non-farm jobs. [FN13] Many described the farm crisis of the Eighties as the worst since the Great Depression.
From this:
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id395.htm
There’s this:
Bankruptcies and farm foreclosures reached record levels. The country’s trade deficit increased from $25 billion in 1980 to $111 billion in 1984. In addition, the huge increases in military spending, combined with insufficient cuts in other programs, produced massive budget deficits, the largest in the country’s history; by the end of Reagan’s second term, the deficits would contribute to a tripling of the national debt, to more than $2.5 trillion.
From this:
http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-214230
and there’s this:
In the heartland, where right-wing candidates knocked so many liberal Senators into political oblivion in 1980, there is but one real election issue this year: the farm crisis. Class of ‘80 members who are favored to win — Wisconsin’s Robert Kasten, Iowa’s Charles Grassley, Indiana’s Dan Quayle, Oklahoma’s Don Nickles — have tried to distance themselves from Reagan’s farm policies. But their colleague, James Abdnor of South Dakota, fumbled the farm issue and subsequently found himself fighting an uphill battle for re- election.
From this 1986 article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,962458-4,00.html
Oh, btw, thanks to Reagan’s farm policies, the Repubs lost control of the Senate in that 1986 mid-term. So you should – as a dyed in the wool Bushie conservative – be MAD at him, not happy.
Also, keep in mind, the numbers would have been even worse if there wasn’t a moratorium on farm foreclosures for two years in Reagan’s second term. Which was then followed by the S&L crisis, generally blamed (wrongly) on Bush I.
But you go ahead and keep believing otherwise…as a member of a Minnesota farming family in the 1980’s, I’ll stick to the truth.
4
Anon E. Mouse
// Feb 4, 2008 at 11:02 am
I was in the middle of a nice, well researched response to your post, BJ, when the power went out.
Suffice to say – I see absolutely nothing that disputes that, between 1945 and 1978, American family farms went from 5.4 million in number to 2.2 million and that, in the 1980’s, that number dropped to around 2 million+.
The bank deregulation you mention happened in the 1970’s when restrictions on lending were relaxed by the National Land Bank caused the price of land to jump. When grain prices crashed, in part because of the Carter Grain Embargo and in part because of increase production, so did the land value.
Also, I read an article that suggested counting farm bankruptcies is a popular but very flawed way of determining the health of the rural economy.
As far as your sources, many of them are deeply flawed. Your timeswatch article actually de-constructs the editorial you quote from.
Your view of the 1986 off-year election is also severely flawed – don’t forget, there was a drought on. For three year, farmer watched their lives evaporate in front of them.
Once again you fail to look at history. You choose 1980 as your starting point, trying to forget all that happened, dating back to the depression and even before. You fail to take modernization into account – long ago 40 acres would provide for a family then 40 years ago 400 acres – now that would be a good-sized hobby farm, these days.
Your narrow view of life on a farm in the 80’s, while real, does not capture the whole picture.
I live through those times, as well. I had relatives that weathered the bad times and others that did not. I know well the thought of farming as a lifestyle. It is also a business. I hate to say this, but some of my relatives were not good businessmen. Others were shrewd. I know an old man with an 8th grade education who fought with his more educated son about the family farm. He said it was foolish to buy land at these prices and to go into debt in uncertain times. He was right and the family farm survived and is now being worked by his grandson (who has a college education but still listens to his grandfathers advice).
It goes way beyond “Reaganesque damage to family farms”.
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