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Aug. 19th, 2004 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedMr. Keyes doesn't want to get rid of the Agriculture Dept any more.
Cynical voter person. You thought he changed his mind because agriculture is important to his newfound home state, right?
No. It's the fantastic performance of the USDA under Republican rule that has wrought this sea change.
Just some of the signal achievements of the USDA under Bush:
If this is the kind of performance that can save a government program from the chopping block in the eyes of a hardy conservative like Mr. Keyes, I'd say the era of big government isn't going away any time soon.
Under Republicans, anyway.
On his first campaign trip into Illinois farm country, Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes said Thursday he no longer favors abolishing the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Keyes in 1996 had called the department an "expensive top-heavy bureaucracy that was not actually contributing to the good of the farmers." But he said Thursday that things had changed under Republican leadership in Washington and he now favors keeping the department.
Democratic rival Barack Obama's campaign called Keyes' statement Thursday "a dramatic flip-flop."
Keyes, speaking at Republican Day at the State Fair, also expressed support for tax breaks that encourage development of alternative fuels, such as corn-based ethanol. He ducked questions about lifting the federal embargo on trade with Cuba.
The State Fair visit was Keyes' first opportunity to speak directly to downstate party leaders and voters, and their reactions varied widely.
Cynical voter person. You thought he changed his mind because agriculture is important to his newfound home state, right?
No. It's the fantastic performance of the USDA under Republican rule that has wrought this sea change.
Just some of the signal achievements of the USDA under Bush:
- "willfully obstructing justice" to block african-american farmers from receiving compensation guaranteed to them in the settlement of a class action lawsuit
- Lost track of 10,000 pounds of mad cow infected meat somewhere out there in your grocer's freezer
- refused to take up universal testing for mad cow disease that would have reopened our overseas market as well as, you know, possibly keeping us from getting mad cow disease
- blocked businesses from private mad cow testing which would have made the universal unsafe practices look like unsafe practices (and opened up overseas markets)
- then they blamed the whole thing on Canada, which actually have better records and testing for live cows than we do
- allowed "private working groups" within the USDA to contravene law and clear the way for banned processed beef products from Canada
- quietly changed standards for the USDA Organic Foods label to allow the use of pesticides (they got caught and had to change them back)
and then there was this good government apotheosis from the guy they have running food and nutrition programs over there: In reference to food stamp programs, which tend to become somewhat overtaxed when lots of people can't afford to feed their kids, Eric Bost had this to say"There's a bump, but how much of that is due to people taking the easy way out? I don't know."
If this is the kind of performance that can save a government program from the chopping block in the eyes of a hardy conservative like Mr. Keyes, I'd say the era of big government isn't going away any time soon.
Under Republicans, anyway.
