Make a Stand for Free Market Ranching: Support Tony Dean Grassland!

Mr. Kurtz brings to my attention commentary on another good bill Thune and the Republicans are holding hostage for the sake of more tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%. Well-traveled George Wuerthner at New West observes that S. 3310, the Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act, would preserve our swiftly dwindling native prairie. Wuerthner also finds it ironic that a bill bearing Tony Dean's name would (contrary to Kristi Noem's willfull ignorance) protect existing grazing rights:

America has very little of its native prairie in any protected status. Most of the plains have been carved up by till farming, and the rest is grazed by livestock. Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act would correct this by designating 48,000 acres as wilderness in the Indian Creek, Red Shirt and Chalk Hills areas of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland on the borders of Badlands NP. Walking these vast open breathing spaces reminds me of being on the vastness of tundra in Alaska. It’s a sense of freedom that is more difficult to experience in more forested terrain. As with any designated wilderness, livestock grazing will continue. This is particularly ironic since Tony Dean, who was an outdoor writer in South Dakota, railed against welfare ranchers and their impact on the state for decades. However language could be inserted into the legislation to permit buyouts of grazing privileges so that eventually bison, not cattle, will be grazing these lands [George Wuerthner, "Omnibus Wilderness Bill Likely," New West, 2010.11.29].

Welfare ranchers? Did Tony Dean say that?

Well, he let Sam Hurst say it on his website, and in reference to this very land:

Welfare Ranchers on Public Lands," Tony Dean Outdoors, 2006]

Dean himself called the no-bid grazing leases on public lands "welfare ranching" in this article. Neither Hurst nor Dean was advocating eco-socialism. They argue for ending subsidies and letting the free market rule.

The Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act would create a unique national grasslands wilderness. It's a good idea. So is ending the market-skewing, deficit-widening subsidy to a handful of ranchers who plea for socialism. Why don't John Thune and Kristi Noem get that?

Who Needs Two Parties? GOP Cognitive Dissonance Covers All Philosophical Bases

Dr. Blanchard writes an intelligent critique of political culture in South Dakota. For most of its existence, South Dakota has labored under unhealthy one-party rule. All too often, the state Democratic party has branded itself as imitation Republican. As demonstrated by Tuesday's election results, voters have no reason to buy imitation when they can get the real thing for the same price.

But Dr. Newquist gets me thinking that, if we want a real debate between conflicting ideas, we may not need Democrats. We can just listen to the simultaneously held contradictory positions of South Dakota Republicans:

...for a state that is so predominantly dependent upon federal handouts for its survival, the elimination of those programs would be devastating to the agricultural economy of the state. One comment cast the usual charge of socialist to the post, and I replied that a state that is dependent on so many federal handouts is about as socialist as a state can get.

I have been engaged in reporting on farm programs since I had that responsibility as the farm editor for a newspaper in the early 1960s. There has been a bipartisan concern about the degree to which the farm programs might become a major source of farm income so that it could turn American agriculture into a version of the collectivist system that was such a failure for the Soviet Union. What the commenters cannot grasp is that the matter is not a partisan issue. Both liberal and conservative politicians from urban areas think that budget cutting has to begin with farm programs [David Newquist, "Hey, Democrats...," Northern Valley Beacon, 2010.11.05].

A paltry plurality of South Dakotans (with the assistance of Dem-leaning voters who tended to abstain for lack of choices) just elected to Congress Kristi Noem, a woman who stirs our local Sarah Palin fantasies by promising to cut big government even as she and her family make a living selling federally subsidized crop insurance and collecting more farm subsidies than all but 17 other South Dakota ag operations.

Dang: Maybe Kristi Noem has a first-rate intelligence after all.

But maybe Noem will surprise us and reject the farm socialism that has made her family rich. Maybe she'll bite the bullet and vote for reform of the farm subsidy program that will shift the safety net away from her big-money family and friends and commodity crops and toward the small farms and more diverse healthy foods that really need our support. Voting for continued subsidies didn't protect Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or dozens of other Democrats from electoral defeat:

As of the last count, 46 seats switched from Democrat to Republican in rural districts that rank in the top half in EWG’s farm subsidy database. In every single one of those races, incumbent Democrats who were in office in 2008 supported the last Farm Bill and the generous subsidy structure that brought billions of dollars home to their districts. Yet their support for the traditional subsidy system did not make enough of an impression on voters to shield them on election day [David DeGennaro, "Democrats' Bitter Harvest," Environmental Working Group, 2010.11.03].

EWG notes that Nancy Pelosi caved to big ag interests in the 2008 Farm Bill, thinking her rural members would need the political cover. Oops. Moral of that story: quit thinking about power, special interests, and the next election and just vote for what's right while you have the chance!

In the heart of farm country, voting for big farm subsidies doesn't protect your Congressional seat. So go ahead, Congresswoman-Elect Noem. Surprise us. Assuming you can even formulate a coherent agriculture policy (that would be surprise enough), advocate smaller, better government in agriculture. Get on board with John Boehner, who voted against the 2008 Farm Bill. End corporate socialism by cutting direct payments to the rich folks (like you) who don't need it. Redirect subsidies toward healthy food.

Or just acknowledge that South Dakota is a welfare state and that you, your family, and our whole state rely on socialism, on collective community effort, to survive. Either way, end the cognitive dissonance. After all, we in the loyal opposition can't loyally oppose you if you're occupying both positions at once.

Noem on Farm Subsidies: Everybody Else Gets $200K a Year from Uncle Sam, Right?

In an interview with the Rapid City Journal a couple weeks ago, South Dakota's GOP candidate for U.S. House Kristi Noem addressed the question of her family's huge reliance on federal farm subsidies. Watch the video:



Says Noem:

What our family has done is participate in the farm programs. And so the farm programs I think essentially almost every farmer in South Dakota has participated in those, and they haven't been bailouts they have been programs that the United States has put forward for farmers to participate in.

It's all about national security, says Noem, so we don't have to depend on other countries for food. Fear, everyone. Fear.

Noem says every farmer and rancher would prefer more risk management programs to direct payments, a position she's taken in other discussions like the State Fair debate.

Noem concludes by claiming, "We've done what every other farmer and rancher has done by participating in those [programs]."

Actually, no, Kristi. You haven't done what every other farmer and rancher has done. As the invaluable Environmental Working Group notes, the vast majority of farmers get little benefit from farm subsidy programs. 26% of South Dakota farmers get no subsidies. 10% of South Dakota farmers claim 61% of the subsidies sent to our state. The bottom 80% have collected an average of $1,334 per year since 1995. The top 10% have collected an average of $35,077 per year since 1995.

Your family, Kristi, has taken over three million dollars in subsidies over the last 15 years. That's $200,000 per year. That's more federal handouts than all but 17 other farm operations in the entire state have taken over the same period. Three million dollars is six times the amount I've earned in paychecks since 1995.

On farm subsidies, Kristi Noem again demonstrates her inability to square the anti-government, free-market principles she spouts for her Tea Party supporters with her family's dependence on federal handouts for fiscal viability.