The oldest and most durable of all Washington handouts is the agricultural subsidy. Without it, of course, farm families would be forced off the land, food prices would rise, and all manner of woe would be the nation's lot.
The thing is, of course, a trough where the fat hogs crowd and slop. As Diane Katz writes in an absolutely essential Heritage report, the worthies who have received farm subsidies in the recent past include: former-President Jimmy Carter ($272,288), current Republican senator Charles Grassley ($955,192), and ... well, what do you know, serving Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack ($82,874).
Washington protests, always, that it has reduced spending ruthlessly and there is no more fat to be cut.
Former President Jimmy Carter praised former President George W. Bush today at the Bush Library opening in Dallas Texas:
"President Bush kept his promise," Carter said, of Bush's commitment to help with Africa.
Carter concluded, "So Mr. President, let me say that I'm filled with admiration for you and deep gratitude for you about the great contributions you've made to the most needy people on earth."
I've been wary of comparisons of this year's presidential race with that of 1980. I'd love it if the comparison holds, but have been worried 1) that the conditions aren't the same as in 1980 in all kinds of ways, and 2) that over-confidence the race will inevitably break to Romney at the end, as the 1980 race did to Reagan, could lead to complacency on the right rather than a sense of urgency, including a sense of urgency in pushing the Romney campaign to improve.
A friend notes Jimmy Carter's diary entry from the day after the 1980 Reagan debate—the last time a Democratic president lost a debate to a Republican challenger:
When Republican strategists like Karl Rove cite 1980 as a model for this year’s election, they usually have in mind two main elements: Ronald Reagan’s question in the late October presidential debate about whether voters felt better off than four years earlier, when they elected Jimmy Carter, and Reagan’s ability in that debate to reassure swing voters about his ability to serve successfully if elected, converting a very close race into a ten-point blowout by “closing the deal.”
President Obama is outside the ideological mainstream, viewed as very liberal by an electorate that’s moderate or somewhat conservative. His domestic policies are unpopular, notably his health care law, economic stimulus, and spending plans. His foreign policy initiatives—curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program, improving America’s position in the Middle East, fostering better relations with Russia—have failed. The public wants Obama to jettison his ineffective economic policies and implement new ones. But he refuses.
This video splices Barack Obama's statement on Mitt Romney's foreign policy with Jimmy Carter's statement on Ronald Reagan's foreign policy from nearly 30 years ago:
If there's one thing we've learned after nearly a week on THE WEEKLY STANDARD cruise, it's this: Jimmy Carter was the best thing that could have happened to modern conservatism.
According to a Newsweek/Daily Beast poll of likely voters, Barack Obama now rates behind Jimmy Carter in the pantheon of great presidents. The poll asked likely voters to list the two best and the two worst presidents the history of the United States. Here are the tallies, based on net results:
On January 23, 1980, Jimmy Carter gave what turned out to be his final State of the Union address. Ronald Reagan’s victory over Carter that November spared us any more of them. Will Barack Obama’s appearance before Congress on January 24, 2012, be his swan song?
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