Corn shortage--Obama's got that!
Let's see. We could scrap the mandate for ethanol, lowering corn prices and therefore lowering meat prices in the process (and stopping it from tearing up our engines), or...just spend upwards of 200 million of tax money to artificially inflate meat prices. Brilliant!!!
From the article:
"To recap, government is driving up the cost of food, animal feed and gasoline, and Obama's solution is to drive up meat prices as well. Obama could eliminate the entire problem overnight and reduce carbon emissions were he to waive the ethanol mandate in a time of drought. Instead, he is creating a new spending program to mollify livestock producers, who, were it not for the ethanol mandate, would be able to make an honest living without his help."
Paul Ryan--for realz?
So we've all heard about the Ryan thing. Obviously, it's a smart pick from the GOP/Romney perspective. He does seem to energize the base and as someone said on twitter (I think it was Dave Weigel), he at least seems like the type of person who will remember what magazines and newspapers he reads and could probably recall at least a couple of SCOTUS decisions.
Of course, many of us, especially those of us on the Liberty tip, can point out that Ryan is not the conservative Godsend that many on the right are thinking he is. Let's go down the list: he supported TARP, the auto bailouts, Stimulus I & II, Patriot Act, Medicare Expansion, No Child Left Behind, NDAA, and several other big-government policies. But that won't stop your regular FOX viewer from gettin' real excited about him as I've already seen several times in the last few days.
Over at United Liberty, a page I contribute to, Matt Naugle looks at Ryan's budget plan to see if that, at least, is something that Libertarians and independents can get behind. The short answer--no. Unless you think balancing the budget should take a generation or two to complete...
And to complete the UL hat-trick, here's a very well-written write-up (I'm a sucker for alliteration) that tries to explain why a Libertarian/libertarian should get behind a Romney/Ryan ticket.
Her main point is--"we've got to start somewhere." That somewhere is supposed to be a voucher program for Medicare that really probably won't lower expenses and will probably only benefit the big health insurance companies? I don't think so. And as I commented on her write-up, the elephant in the living room is military spending. We're just wasting time until we're ready to address that:
All I’m pointing out, to use a business analogy, is if I’ve still got cash flow covering most expenses on a certain budget item (medicare) while I’m spending tons more without any revenue on another budget item (military, DOD, FP etc.), I would look at the item where I’m spending way more without any revenue. I run a business and you have to look at the big, long-term picture (net profit) and short-term (cash flow) at the same time. Both are important but when you’re in survival mode, you’ve got to look at cash flow with more urgency. With all that said, as I’m sure you well know, all one has to do is to look at the government’s own numbers relating to future expenditures of entitlements and debt service to see how really screwed we are. But! We’re going to be dead in the water anyway until we make huge spending cuts on everything else. Those cuts must be done right now for us to have any chance…
Y'all do know that we have a trillion dollar defense budget. Meanwhile, Social Security, at approx. 770 billion per year, is still basically paying for itself as is Medicare. We've got to get serious about this military spending before it's too late. Ole Ike tried to warn us about this a half-century ago...
Local/East Metro
We've got 2 runoffs coming up in Newton Co. BOC 5, GOP, and State House 113--Democrat.
The BOC race is between Levie Maddox and Ronnie Dimsdale...mmm...I just don't know about that one. Dimsdale does seems to be a "consensus builder," whatever that means, and Maddox seems to be a pretty intelligent guy who seems to really care about our county. Chances are, either one of them would probably to an alright job, so perhaps you should just flip a coin.
In the State House race, I'd definitely voted for Mrs. Sharon Sawyer if I lived in that district. She's a super nice lady who would do a good job, I think.
