3 ms·

You want to find a rare issue with bipartisan support? Try raising the price of food and seeing how people like it.

• dragonwriter 7y ago
  > You want to find a rare issue with bipartisan support? Try raising the price of food and seeing how people like it. Food stamps are designed to raise the market clearing price of food as a subsidy to agriculture (they’ve since become a means-tested welfare program as well, while retaining the original purpose); they have fairly strong political support, which definitely shows a partisan divide. The Dairy Price Support Program and other agricultural price support programs likely continue to exist despite having the sole purpose of raising the price of food; were raising the price of food the kind of third-rail you are trying to imply, there would be a bipartisan consensus against such programs that would make it impossible to retain them.
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    Actually, we started subsidizing farms to compete against the Soviet Union during the cold war, to demonstrate the superiority of "capitalism." They served their purpose well, but now they're almost impossible to remove. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/farms-race/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/farms-race/
    • philwelch 7y ago
      Farm subsidies started during the New Deal. I believe one effect of those subsidies was to maintain a reserve of farm capacity that was used in WWII to provide needed food aid to our allies, including the Soviets.