This is the LAMEST Political attack yet

I think they're striking out in terror, instead of using logical thinking; much like a wounded animal. They'll swing at anything, all common sense has flown out the window! : )

Oh, it WILL get worse - next time what they release, at the last minute, will be a BIG FAT LIE and not enough time to prove it. They fear Rand Paul!

Rand handled the attacks in the primary very well. He should be able to handle the general election. He's learned quite a bit now.

Matthew, I do take what the law entitles me to take. I urge others to do likewise. I take all the tax deductions the law allows. I take all the subsidies available to me. I take what the government, INCLUDING YOU -- by the way -- has determined I am entitled to as a contributing member of the American citizenry. I am in full agreement that Rand Paul has every right to campaign on a platform of getting rid of all those benefits of contributing to American Society. But I would oppose him for that reason and that reason alone.

Here's the deal Matthew, you make no distinction between incentives to contribute to the welfare of the nation and its people, and the outright charity provided to sustain life for the weakest members of society in hard times. Farm subsidies keep the agricultural economy healthy. RAND PAUL WANTS TO REMOVE THEM. It is like taking away antibiotics because they might save a life. Rand Paul, and apparently you, take the position that People should not be helped to survive, they should do it on their own. Same for businesses. Of course if the people die, the Businesses do too, and if the Businesses die, so do the people.

Get smart fella, the health of a nation is not assured by requiring the citizens to depend on fragile systems with NO safety nets.

Conservative political philosophy as preached by you and a lot of your supporters is an absolute guarantee of an economy and culture that mirrors Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Peru, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, South Africa, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, China, North Korea, and a few hundred other smaller economies.

Keep at it, your grandchildren will be living Like Mexicans live. Either in poverty or behind fortress walls.

Or, illegally in the USA.

Why don't you want people to learn to be responsible for themselves, Karl? I have never understood that at all. Why cripple people by keeping them tied to the government?

Some people can explain it much better than I, but our position on subsidies is that they are harmful. They are also illegal (No authority given to the federal government for subsidies) and unfair (they go to rich farmers, dead farmers, farmers that are not farmers, etc.).

I agree sometimes we are forced to take subsidies that we are opposed to, because we have no choice. If the government did not take the money from us to begin with, that would not be a problem.

Matthew, I don't actually need an explanation of the Neoconservative or TEA Party position on subsidies. I PAY ATTENTION.

My position is Subsidies are BENEFICIAL TO THE GENERAL WELFARE. They preserve businesses. But, I see highway construction as subsidy for the trucking industry. I see aid to education as subsidy for the educational system. I see federal office building construction, purchase, and leasing as subsidy to the real estate industry. And medicare as subsidy to the Medical Profession, as well as the consumers.

Your last paragraph is a myth. No one is FORCED to take a subsidy. If you don't want to take the grant, don't take it. You might have to find a different way to make a living, but that is up to you.

You have not addressed the SINGLE issue. These safety nets are there for the benefit of the SOCIETY...not just the farmer/doctor/businessman.

I see exactly what you mean.

However I do not believe it benefits society.

Well Matthew, now we have the basis for a discussion of subsidies, and perhaps free market capitalism, and maybe some other issues.

I think that subsidies do benefit society because I am aware of the history of the Great Depression. I am also aware of the history of Ancient and Modern Spain. You might want to look into the Fascist System under Francisco Franco. Or the economic collapse created in the 18th Century by the influx of wealth into Spain, and England from the colonial economies.

Spain managed to destroy itself by OUTSOURCING ALL PRODUCTION. They started by importing GOLD and SILVER from mines in the New World, and using that new wealth to buy produce from France, Italy and North Africa. They added to their instability by expelling the Jews and the Moors as undesirable influences on the CHRISTIAN society they wanted.

And, they are just now recovering. The last gasp was Franco's fascist society.

YOU and the rest of the followers of Leo Strauss want to follow that exact same pattern.

Fascism and a free market are as compatible as the north poles of two magnets.

In a free market there are no government subsidies and taxes are much lower, which makes up the difference likely by a factor >1.

Oh, and I'm not a follower of Leo Strauss. I don't even know much about him to begin with.

It is hard to hold one's father in law to be one's responsibility. I have had two father-in-laws and I think either one would have laughed had I tried to tell him how to run his business.

I don't hold Paul responsible for his father-in-law but it does show that all sides are benefiting from subsidies. No side can claim that they are opposed to subsidies when all sides have put them in place.

Agreed. However, I don't know what his father in law's political views are. Obviously not libertarian in this area though.

Matthew,

Personally I don't care what the father-in-law thinks about anything. It's none of my business. And as far as my feelings or beliefs about Paul, they also are independent of his father and his other relatives.

Larry don't want to stick my nose in but before I read Matthew's last comment I was going to say to you, because you said this:

"I don't hold Paul responsible for his father-in-law but it does show that all sides are benefiting from subsidies."

What I was going to say was, we don't know that both sides are benefiting (which they probably are) but the way you said it makes it sound like his FIL is on the other side, which we do not know.

Jackie,

You are quite correct that I have no idea what political beliefs and positions the FIL takes nor has taken. He is an innocent bystander so far as I am concerned. His subsidy should not have been brought to the attention of the American people. That is none of our business.

We are 100% agreed.

Hypocrisy would be a senator voting to raise everyone's taxes and then docking his yacht at a place with lower taxes than where he lives.

http://bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1269698

Now that's hypocrisy.

That's a much better example of hypocrisy.

Yes, lame. And typical.

I am surprised they are embarrassing themselves like this.

NO crime was comitted! The In-laws were able to get farm subsidies! That's not a crime!

True...

Fact!

I am going to say this once more. Rand Paul, and Ron Paul, are both opposed of providing safety nets for the US economy. No hypocrisy from either saying as much. They are idiotically wrong, unless they want the working class of America to live like the Working Class of Brazil.

The safety net will be from Americans citizens that will voluntarily help those who need it. Do the neocons/progressives not trust the people enough to take care of themselves?

"The safety net will be from Americans citizens that will voluntarily help those who need it. "

So, why are you not volunteering to pay for it, and allowing the Government to administer it?

Your statement about "volunteer" payments is open to ridicule.

Paul, a tea party-backed Republican, has been critical of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's farm subsidy program even though his father-in-law received more than $10,000 in payments over 12 years.

Matthew: What? Exactly what hypocrisy is there here?

tame: Ok, so let's make it conflict of interest.
Or how about not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
Or how about you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?


Come on, Matthew...
Make this interesting!
Don't tell me what it isn't! Tell me what it is!

tame

PS Matthew: You can do better. tame: So can you.

Karl- farmer's subsidies are entirely unnecessary. (And unhealthy- were' subsidizing corn and other stuff that is being used to make cheap, unhealthy food. Food Inc. is a good movie on the subject)

When I talk about individuals providing safety nets- I don't mean subsidies for business.

tamerlane- Dr. Paul is not responsible for his father in law's actions. To call him a hypocrite for the actions of someone he is not responsible for is illogical.

If Paul were to make an exemption of some sort so his family members could continue receiving money, then there would be an issue to address.

Tame, my brother is an alcoholic and I am fighting for stronger punishment for DUI, by your logic that makes me a hypocrit, too.
Wow.

Matthew, to a limited extent I agree with you. But there have been times when the lack of subsidy would have meant the loss of farms, and farming. There are times that the cost of making a bushel of corn is higher than the price that will be paid.

The subsidies were a bail out. And one that was applied to a vital industry. They are not necessary today BECAUSE THEY WERE APPLIED WHEN THEY WERE.

So, you and I should be working on a system that allows them when they are needed and takes them away when the need passes. OH...AND ONE OTHER THING. Your Corn Dogs Cost less because CORN IS SUBSIDIZED. And your JOCKEY SHORTS TOO. Since Cotton is also subsidized.

Anyway, I support rational aid to American Farmers. I OPPOSE IRRATIONAL AID TO AMERICAN FARMERS.

I know the corn costs less. I'd rather pay the market price and not be taxed for the subsidy.

I'll leave it to someone else for now to debate the specifics of the loss of farms. I haven't read of enough history on that subject to properly address it here.

If you'd like to have the federal government be in the business of bailing out farmers we will need a Constitutional amendment to grant them the power.

Thanks for sharing

The point is from this issue that Paul is being put into the media because he is against something that his father in law is for... Big deal.... Who ever said that you have to think alike because you married into that family....
This is such a petty thing.. They are sinking really low now Matthew...
Now, if it was about Obama sitting in a church with a racist preacher for 20 years and claims that he didnt know the preacher spoke like this... NOW thats a story..

Sorry Matthew, I had to throw the racist Wright and Obama in there.. It was to tempting...

You get um Vickey, we have all laughed over that one....like saying you go to the same store every week and had no idea they sold beer...same thing lol stupid of him to try and make us believe that crap.

Great post btw Matthew!

Thanks Jackie and Vickey.

Jeffery, exactly how does honest discussion and debate amount to "bad publicity?" You are right, farmers feed America. But secrecy is only a tool of tyranny. It is never in the best interest of a democracy to prevent BAD publicity or GOOD publicity. It is often in the best interest of the tyrant to do that.

What subsidy pays farmers to Grow crops? I know a few that pay farmers NOT to grow a crop. The reason for that is the US can grow enough to feed the world. Prices of grain and other produce would drop significantly of farmers used their land to half the extent it is capable of. i.e. A loaf of bread costs me from 2 -3 bucks. If there was an abundant supply of wheat it would be about 50 cents. Farm subsidys are designed to keep prices UP.

Rand Paul better watch it. Soon they'll dig up some dirt on this Wife's third cousin's step father's uncle by marriage.

CoL... this is funny... a good one...lol

I remember when they first started paying people to NOT grow crops, no on could believe it, but it worked it made shortages, and it made the prices go up...so they did there job well.

I worked for a wheat farmer who wanted to retire. He put his whole farm in the land bank. Later he was paid to plant wheat grass in his fields and was told it was fine if he raised horses, A dream he always wanted.

When I was in college in MO I knew several "farmers" who had land in the land bank, swamp land that could not be farmed.

Thanks Vickey

A loaf of bread costs me from 2 -3 bucks. If there was an abundant supply of wheat it would be about 50 cents.

The average loaf of bread weights a pound and a half. The current price of wheat is $5.89 a bushel. There are approx. 60 lbs of wheat in a bushel.

Do the math....

Sure, a pound of wheat yields less than a pound of flour - but still you get the idea. Commodity prices rarely reflect shelf price.

The U.S. has had a "cheap-food" agricultural policy for as far back as anyone can remember.

Don't get me wrong, I am not for subsidies of any kind - but let's keep the facts straight.

If the price of wheat were $2 a bushel, the commody from it would be much cheaper. The government subsidies keep the price up. The price of wheat is governed by the proten content not the bushel. A bushel of wheat grown on a dry land farm has higher protean but they get about 20 bushels to the acre. In more temperate climates with more rain they get about 40 bushels to the acre yet they don't any more than the dryland farmer.

That's the way it was when I was a kid and I don't think it's changed.

Why do we want to keep prices above market supported levels anyway? It harms the poor and the economy.

That it does Matthew. It's to protect the profits of big farms.

Ask any of them accusing Rand Paul of hypocrisy if they want to be held accountable for what their fathers-in-law did, and then we'll see some hypocrisy.

Absolutely.

This is a non-issue,Mathew; Paul's opponent is snatching at straws is he thinks he's going to get any traction on this.-Norman

Exactly. Thanks.