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Pork 'n' Peanuts
Call me naïve, but I had kind of hoped that this sort of unethical politics would taper off a bit with the House under Democratic control. Sigh.
Sadly, bloated agricultural subsidies are as much of an American institution as amber waves of grain (which, due to payouts such as this, cheaply flood foreign markets, destabilizing smaller economies, and putting their producers out of business.) Their appearance in the bill, probably attributable to farm state Democrats who needed a little something extra to show their deeper-pocketed constituents in exchange for their votes, is a regrettable one. It appears that no matter who's running the House, at the end of the day, the lobbyists are still going to get their way. At least somebody's winning.
But if it's possible for there to be an up side to this unfortunate situation, there's always the Iraq withdrawal to be thankful for. The Democrats promised it in the midterm elections, and now they are delivering, albeit in a somewhat less-than-heroic fashion. While pouring billions of dollars into the inscrutable money pit of the Iraq war has hardly been a good idea in the past, it is really the only thing to be done. The prospect that by late next year we may be able to imagine an America not embroiled in this unwinnable quagmire is almost enough to take the sting away.