Two Congressmen Share The Wrong Track

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For many here it came as a surprise that Wisconsin House members rejected the farm subsidy bill on a 5-3 vote. The three who voted for the farm bill were Democrats David Obey, Tammy Baldwin and Steve Kagen. While the other two Democrats, Gwen Moore and Ron Kind voted against it. They were joined by Republicans Paul Ryan, Tom Petri and Jim Sensenbrenner. Ryan, offered these reasons for his opposition.

New York Times: July 26, 2007
“When farm prosperity is as good as it is right now, this is the time to reform,” said Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and a member of the dissident group. “If we can’t reform these farm programs at this moment in our history, we will never be able to do it.”

Followed by this more recent comment.

Examiner.com: May 14, 2008
"The farm bill should be focused on providing a safety net for family farmers in times of need, yet Congress has instead opted to subsidize the wealthy at a time when food prices are surging," he said. "Our agricultural policies are in desperate need of common sense reform and this bill fails to deliver." -- Rep. Paul Ryan

Sure, if there's one thing I hate, it's welfare for the wealthy, and voting against farm subsidies based on this perception, however inaccurate, is difficult to argue with until we look back at Ryan's vote on Big Oil subsidies in January of 2007. At that time all of Wisconsin's House democrats and one lone Republican, Petri, decided Big Oil no longer needed taxpayer hand-outs and voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies.

This of course leaves us with Sensenbrenner and Ryan as the only two Wisconsin Congressmen who share the common distinction of voting against Wisconsin farmers all the while voting for Big Oil subsidies. Why the double standard based on the recipient's wealth? Only they can answer that contradiction. Perhaps their perception of Big Oil's wealth wasn't windfall enough to deny the hand-outs.

Meanwhile, the Janesville Gazette title Politically popular farm bill gets election year boost followed in their old form and belittled the bi-partisan farm aid bill as nothing more than an election year gimmick. But when it came time to rollback federal subsidies padding windfall profits, Ryan and Sensenbrenner said NO. Hopefully that’ll give them the election year kick they deserve.