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Originally Posted by dc_dux
ace. I am quite comfortable with my defense of accepting the bill as the best possible means of providing a critcally necessary increase in funding for food stamps and related nutrition programs in order to provide aid to more than 10 million Americans in need.
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"Best possible means of providing critically...", suggests that compromising for the benefit of wealthy farmers is the only possible approach available. We know that is not true. I simply suggest if people acted in a manner consistent with their stated principles and less concerned about political power we could accomplish the goal of having a safety net for those in need. Your premise that Republican would never support this or that is speculative at best. Not willing to do the work to get a bill that benefits American's is taking the easy way out. I expect more from our leadership in Washington.
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As I noted...this was the only way to get an increase in essential programs to suport more than 10 million urban and rural poor and working class Americans.
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Why do you ignore the costs? Their are the obvious hard dollar costs in the form of taxes paid by the middle class and those not benefiting from the bill. There are the increased costs associated with idling land that would otherwise be put into production. The are the costs of allocating limited resource to inefficient means of food production from more efficient means of food production. There are the costs associated with high fat/high sugar diets being subsidized. There are the environmental costs of subsidizing beef production. There are costs associated with restrictions on free trade. You don't know what the net cost is, most people in Washington who support the bill don't know what the net cost is. Worse, it appears that there is no concern over what the net cost is.
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You suggested a free standing bill would be better but there is no evidence or past record that Republicans would support such a bill.The Republicans did not support a free standing bill to raise the minimum wage. It had to be added to an emegency supplement bill in order to be enacted.
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This is not a partisan issue to me. I simple do not support this bill. I did not support it in 2002 and I have never supported a "farm subsidy" bill.
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They did not support a veto-proof extension of the State Childrens Health Program at any increased level of funding, beyond inflationary adjustments, which resulted in fewer children of working class families served.
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If you want to discuss that issue, there is a thread on that topic. Using the lack of Republican support of the SCIP bill as a reason to conclude that Republican's won't support a bill for needy children, elderly and disabled is a fallacious use of logic.
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They opposed a free-standing bill to extend the Family Medical Leave Act to enable workers to provide longer term caring for a wounded vet returning from Iraq.
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Ditto, see above.
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They have stalled in committee a free standing bill to provide emergency unemployment compensation in states with chronically high and long-term unemployment...
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So...I am comfortable with my defense of the only bill that would have increased food stamps and nutrition programs this year.
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Ditto, see above.
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It would not have been my first choice to achieve that goal...but there are times when the political reality requires that compromises and accommodations be made to achieve the same goal.
But thanks for your concern with my reputation. 
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I think Obama's words suggest that Washington is broken, I agree with him and think the Farm Bill is an example of what is broken. You seem to support Obama, are his words empty, is he cut from the same cloth as everyone else?
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One final thought....
For someone who puts himself in the position of "defending the indefensible" invasion and occupation of Iraq...at a cost of over $1/2 TRILLION (to date), 4,000+ American casualties, 25,000+ American wounded, nearly 100,000 Iraqi dead, more than 4 millions Iraqis displaced from their homes and NO END IN SIGHT....I find it it is just a tad arrogant and condescencing to question what others believe is defensible.
I would prefer to suggest that we have honestly held policy differences.
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I did support the Iraq war and initially I supported the occupation. I changed my veiw on the occupation some time ago and even stated in one of the many threads on the subject. My view is that we (America) do not have have the will to see this war to its conclusion at this time, especially while Bush is President. I also believe we will either conclude the war with victory or we will have to fight an ongoing war and ultimately pay a much higher price and we will end up back in ME. Our current war policy his half-assed. We either need to be in it 100% or out of it 100%. We are wasting money and resources at this time. I defended the war which was very defensible, but I do not currently support the occupation given our nation being unwilling to fully support our commander in chief.
And, yes - I am arrogant. I generally won't defend the indefensible. It is insightful that you picked up on my arrogance. Or, perhaps not, in most cases it takes people about 30 seconds of interaction time to come to that conclusion. I have been working on humility, I thought I was failing, but how could that be possible. It is not, and it has taken you, what at least a year... Thanks for the compliment.