The Morning Rant

"The world's greatest deliberative body?" My ass.

The Grown in America Act of 2025 (H.R. 1707) is legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in early 2025. Sponsored by Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN) along with Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) and others, the bill's goal is to strengthen American agriculture by encouraging businesses to buy more of their agricultural raw materials domestically rather than from foreign countries. This bill, which is a rational response to outsourcing of agricultural products to foreign players that might very well be our adversaries, is a market-driven answer to a national security imperative...we must produce our own food, and if it costs us a bit more than buying it from foreign countries? So be it. Countries worldwide understand this and subsidize their food production in many ways: with direct subsidies, with tax advantages, with estate tax carve-outs for farms, etc. In fact, we do some of that already, with an insanely complex support system that often pays farmers not to produce!

But subsidizing their domestic customers with a tax credit is far cheaper, and it neatly avoids the geopolitical cudgel that other countries can use against America. China is a big fan of threatening to stop buying our soybeans or pork or...whatever...to bolster their negotiating stance in other areas. This decreases the power of that tactic, and also smooths the boom-and-bust cycle of agricultural commodities.

So what's the problem?

Congress is the problem, even though this bill was presented by a bipartisan (vile word, that!) group of congressmen from agricultural states. First, it is quite obviously a MAGA talking point, which makes it unappetizing to the rabid TDS sufferers in the Democrat Party. Second, it will hurt China, and one can be confident that its agents in America are working hard to blunt its support. Fang Fang anyone? And third, it is simply lost in the miasma of a completely dysfunctional Congress. They can do nothing but interfere and obstruct. Just look at the deeply offensive game that John Thune plays in the Senate to prevent recess appointments by the administration for a sense of their obstruction. And the SAVE Act is most probably dead, even though it is supported by huge majorities of Americans!

The financial effect of this bill is modest, especially in comparison to the massive fraud being perpetrated against the American taxpayer by the welfare apparatus. A small fraction of those fraudulent transfer payments would pay for the tax credits being proposed in this bill, and the funds would remain in America, rather than being funneled to Somalia and Venezuela and Guatemala and China and...

But our legislatures are profoundly broken, and driven by motivations so antithetical to the well being of Americans that it is difficult to recognize what exactly they work toward. Is it self aggrandizement? Is it wealth? Is it power? Is it the success of foreign actors at the expense of the American people?

All yes.

In ancient Rome through Victorian England, actors were considered on par with prostitutes. It is time to embrace that social standing for politicians, and relieve the acting profession of their burden as the lowest of the low.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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