I think this is all just a PR show. “We want to feed the world” Really? With soybeans? No, they want the money. They just don’t want the blame that goes with it.
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Lots of concern in the GOP for agribusiness, petrochemical companies, and automobile manufacturers.
Only Bob Corker even bothers to lump consumers in with business as victims of the tariffs.
I guess that’s why he’s leaving. Just doesn’t fit in with today’s GOP.
Money doesn’t stink…
Look, the world teaches us to be cynical, or at least tries, but for goodness’ sake I’m pretty sure most of these lawmakers want their own constituencies to flourish economically. It has a lot to do with their keeping their own jobs. 
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Hey, all you GOP senators saying that farmers want markets, not handouts - remember this the next time someone proposes minimum wage increases for working people.
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“The Agriculture Department predicted before the trade fights that U.S. farm income would drop this year to $60 billion, or half the $120 billion of five years ago.”
Any farmer NOT screaming “BRING BACK OBAMA!” deserves to go out of business. I’m not the type swayed by all this misty-eyed sentimentality over family farmers in America. It’s a damn business. Figure it out or sell your farm to a big agribusiness concern. Their votes brought about their own ruination. Next!
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Agreed, between the lines there was certainly the reality that Trump has 45 or so percent general approval and 90% approval rating among Republicans. However, the senator confirming/acknowleging Trump’s idiocy gave me some hope.
Farmers have been getting subsidies for as far back as I can remember. Today it’s no longer the family farmer rolling the dice on weather conditions every season in an effort to ‘feed the world.’ Big Ag does not need subsidies today anymore than Exxon needs subsidies. Big Ag crop risk factors are negligible. The myth of the American Dream has so many layers.
This is all about getting past November 6th. Trump is poison.
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This administration
’s tariffs and bailouts areisn’t going to make America great again.
Corrected, based on the record.
He’s definitely ‘looney.’ Heard him giving an interview humping a book he authored about leadership. A smart guy but the more he talked the weirder the conversation became. Even the interviewer started to stumble, trying to make sense out of WTF the senator was implying. Sasse sounded like a recent graduate of a Koch Educational Summer Camp. And he wants to be president one day.
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always remember that Monsanto doesn’t make their big money because of their high-yield crops - they make it off the fertilizers and weed killers that they have genetically engineered those seeds to need before they grow. You don’t buy wheat from them. You have to buy their wheat which won’t grow without their fertilizer matrix. And if the farmer next to you happens to suffer from the weedkiller sprayed on your property - too bad.
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From what I’ve read, GM sold 70% of its cars in China last year. That’s a market that will dry up immediately and far into the future.
It is not pissing off libs so much as screwing the other guy. Furthermore, it is not just economic but also foreign policy and security that Trump voters do not care much about. Almost all Trump voters still support Bush and his disastrous war in Iraq and blame Clinton of 911. Yet Trump said in at different times that, “Bush lied America into a disastrous war” and “Bush incompetence caused 911.” Bush himself claimed he did well with Evangelical voters and in the South because “they share my values.”
So reiterate numerous other posts, the overwhelming support for Donald Trump by Evangelical voters proves beyond all doubt that “Values” in front of the word voter is and has always been code for race. Well you cannot paint all the tens of millions of Trump voters with a single brush, that does represent most of Trump’s base and why Trump could shoot a person on a busy street in day light and his base would still support him.
But to mattinpa’s point, call me a wild eyed optimist but I agree that at some point all the lying to and stealing from his base that Trump is doing must at some point have an effect.
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Really my only point, again, is that it’s an exaggeration to say Trump voters don’t care about economic issues when the issue is whether or not their own livelihoods should be destroyed. I think they care about that.
Actually, trade wars mostly begin with subsidies. Subsidies affect what is sold there whereas tariffs affect was is sold here. Often and in the most extreme cases, tariffs, like those on American dairy, are a response to subsidies. The problem is that well subsidies affect trade, more often than not they are for reasons other than trade. For example the biggest subsidies other nations give to their manufacturing base when compared with the USA is healthcare. That is only in America is healthcare the responsibility of employers and produces making the biggest advantage other nations have over America in competition for sales of products is their healthcare system.
The American way is not to plan for the long term future. The American way is to strip-mine whatever is available in the present moment. And that’s $12B of taxpayer money. They’ll take it.
I didn’t say they wouldn’t take the money FFS. My point is the relevant lawmakers sincerely want their constituents to have markets open to them and not closed unnecessarily. I’m saying they’re sincere when they say that because there’s no earthly reason for them not to be. If you disagree then we disagree.
Sure, why not. They want it all. Why wouldn’t they. I’m saying this is PR foggery, not wisdom.
“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Bob Dylan from “Like a Rolling Stone”.
Okay, “care” is the wrong word. What currently “motivates” Trump’s base? Remember, half of Romney’s 47% who Romney demonized as “takers” voted for Romney. During the Bush years it was not uncommon for me to meet people complaining about all these “takers” and why they support Bush and in the next breath ask me to represent them in declaring bankruptcy.
In 1984 when I was living in New Orleans to a person the White people understood that Reagan was screwing them. But the loved Reagan because “he is screwing Black people worse.” Actually, that is not a totally accurate quote because they never used the words “Black people”.
So well I agree that at some point economics will be an issue as it is the only way to explain Obama’s elections. But it the case of rural America most of whom never accepted Obama which is why they elected the Birther in Chief, it will need to be much more catastrophic than what will likely happen due to a stupid trade war.
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I’d call it more common sense than wisdom but that’s all I’m saying.