Copy of AFF Sentinel V21 #38-Election News & Opinion Digest
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 4 min read
Key Notes for You,
Homework for October
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 10/12/24
Our thoughts and prayers are with all the folks in the food production chain affected by two hurricanes and numerous tornadoes in the Southeast.
From now until the final Election Day, we will highlight certain key points that we feel have been overlooked, underemphasized or lied about that you can use in election discussions. Use them on members of Congress, their staff, your friends, relatives or…those not your friends.
Election Key Points
1) Cutting tax rates does not mean less revenue for the government. By year two, government revenues increase because of stronger economic growth and higher government tax receipts. And yes, it happened again after the 2017 tax cuts.
2) Republicans in Congress did not pass the “bipartisan border bill,” in part because it guaranteed entry for 5,000 illegals/day (1.8 million annually). It was introduced nearly three-and-a-half years after the beginning of the Biden/Harris administration.
3) Gas and oil production has been near record levels the last couple years. That is due to permits and leases occurring during the Trump Administration. It takes years to develop wells. The Biden administration has done everything it could to decrease energy production, halting leasing, killing the Keystone pipeline, halting permitting and slowing LNG development. Of course, cutting supply helped drive up energy prices and causing inflation for Americans but also funded Iranian terrorist activities and the Russian war machine.
Note: The terrible weather events, along with power outages and internet breakdowns add further impetus to the advice to bank your vote as early as legally possible in your state. The arrest of an Afghan national plotting to shoot things up on election day, as well as the DOJ’s warning about possible internet interruptions add more reasons to get your vote in early.
Evil Omnibus -- members of Congress are out in their districts campaigning now. Don’t miss an opportunity to attend any gathering they hold to get your opinions known. You likely have a list by now, if you’ve been reading our columns and paying attention.
Near the top of your list has to be government spending. Members from both sides of the aisle have enabled the spending and consequent inflation that has ravaged our economy. More than a dozen Republican members voted with Democrats to hold off the Continuing Resolution (CR) government spending bill until Dec. 20. Instead of extending the CR until February or March when a new Congress could set the FY ’24-’25 budgets, they set it up perfectly for another gargantuan omnibus monstrosity. These two- or three- thousand- page horrors are at the heart of our debt problems.
Congress has not been passing the 12 appropriations bills they have a year to debate and pass. So they let everything go to the last minute or beyond, lump everything into a sleigh full of earmarks, pork and special provisions for some folks and wave the Christmas reindeers through in a flash so they can go home for the holidays.
Ask your members to avoid this trap at all costs. Vote for a CR that gives a new Congress and president the chance to set our economic destiny instead of letting big spending Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans from last term to tie the new Congress to too much spending. That’s what happened last year.
The election will be over, they can act like adults and ignore the media blaming them for a shutdown that doesn’t affect a lot and pass the bills they need to pass with some modicum of discussion and deliberation. This is their Number One job. Continuing to shirk a proper shaping of spending policy is what has set our economy on a terrible path -- and on the edge of worse.
An omnibus could include the passage of a Farm Bill. They’ve only had five years to shape up the next Farm Bill but haven’t. Much of the difficulty with this legislation is that strange bedfellows are involved. People have asked for years, why is agriculture thrown in with human feeding programs? Why can’t each sector have their own bills?
The answer has always been, if the human nutrition segments were not included, agriculture could not get enough votes to get any support. It is ironic that part of the support we get now is from so-called reformers who are dead certain they would be much better at running the food chain than all the many cogs in the wheel that feed our nation and much of the world.
Just ask Sens. Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren.
Where once farming and ranching were considered very important to the federal government, Congress now has to be reminded that food doesn’t come from the back of grocery stores. The purpose of the Farm Bill has changed over the years, also. The bill was once seen as a way to use up the crop surpluses caused by price supports and farm ingenuity and efficiency. Using up the surplus was a convenient way to supply government feeding programs, a win/win arrangement for everyone.
Farms programs have gotten away from price supports to a more market oriented approach. Farm programs have shifted to first, crop insurance programs and now, to grazing insurance programs, designed to tide farmers and ranchers over when Mother Nature creates short-term problems for them. Weather cannot be controlled by farmers and ranchers -- or anybody else -- despite what leftists think.
Our address: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 88179, Colorado Springs, CO. 80908.
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