Obama says, "We are at that critical and urgent moment. If Washington continues policies that work against America's family farmers, our rural communities will fall further behind . and so will America. But if we reject the politics that has shut ordinary folks out, we can create a new story for rural America. The dreams of rural Americans are familiar to all Americans to make a good living, to raise a healthy and secure family, and to leave our children a future of opportunity. It's time for real leadership for rural America to extend that American dream. That's the dream of opportunity that I've spent my life fighting for. And that's what our rural agenda will do."
Why is everything urgent and critical for Obama? Why does the government always have to create the new opportunity?
How can America be working against the family farmer when it is doling out record subsidies for corn growers, recently passing a $300 billion dollar farm bill, loaded with tens of billions of dollars of subsidies? If anything, farmers are doing quite well right now. It just isn't true that America is working against the farmer. We have spent more money on farm subsidies than any other industry in America.
Can the government really guarantee us a good living? The Soviet Union had written guarantees of food, housing, and jobs in their Constitution, but they clearly could not deliver on these guarantees. The government seeks to guarantee security by taking from one to give to the other, which ultimately robs an economy of its productivity, its goods and services, and its standard of living. Obama's promises to rural America can only come at the expense of other parts of America. The people that benefit from this kind of redistribution are the bureaucrats and those who receive the money.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Obama will ensure our farm programs help family farmers, not giant corporations. He will fight to enable family farmers to have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and fair prices for their goods.
WHAT IT MEANS: The most efficient producers of products, services, and food are the giant corporations or farms. If the government chooses to help the least efficient producers for the nostalgic reasons of wishing that life could be like some past era that never existed (a common dream of socialists), then they only serve to benefit a few and penalize the majority by lowering the production of food, goods, and services. While this policy sounds nice and homely, it is counterproductive. It makes everyone poorer, except for the bureaucrats and the farmers. The majority of us our penalized for Barack's little pet project.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed internet access. He will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas.
WHAT HE MEANS: The only way he can do this is by taking money through taxes from the urban areas and spending it in the rural areas, a take from the rich and give to the poor socialist approach. Does it make sense to take doctors from the urban areas where they can serve more people and put them in rural areas where their limited expertise can't be used as much? Is it really fair to penalize the majority for the sake of the minority? In a world of limited resources, serving the majority's needs is the optimal condition. The best way to serve the majority is to listen to them. Allowing the government to determine the winners and losers in any society does not meet this optimal condition.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Rural communities often struggle to attract capital because of lack of infrastructure and remote distances. There is less access to quality doctors, and schools have trouble recruiting teachers.
WHAT HE MEANS: Saying that rural communities struggle to attract capital because of lack of infrastructure and remote distances is like saying that people do not go deer hunting in Siberia because of lack of roads. It is too simplistic. Rural communities do not attract capital because of the lack of skilled labor. Urban areas have a much larger pool of labor. Rural communities that have a large pool of labor often attract high paying manufacturing jobs for that purpose. The problem is not rural communities. The problem is they lack the requisite number of skilled laborers to make it worthwhile for capital to relocate to their communities.
In summary, as I read his plan for rural America, two thoughts come to mind. First, it will harm the majority of Americans economically for rural America's benefit. Second, Obama's program is a mishmash of buyoffs. He has put together an eclectic group of programs in an attempt to buy the support of rural America. This is the classic divide-and-conquer, money-for-votes philosophy the socialists love to employ.