‘Anti-socialist’ Trump announces an $8 billion bailout for farmers.

Scrambling for votes at a Kansas Republican pep party last night, President Trump pledged that USDA will be making $8 billion in direct cash payments to American farmers. Combined with the $40 billion he’s already shelled out over the course of his two terms, Trump has given $48 billion in cash to farmers.

Much as I support cash assistance to American farmers – a stable ag economy is probably the  cornerstone of food and national security – this business of Trump financially harming our country’s ag sector with his counter-productive tariffs and inflation-driving foreign policies is getting old and expensive.

As to yesterday’s announcement, farmers shouldn’t be overly enthused about it. Scott Lincicome, VP of General Economics at the Cato Institute calls it “a band-aid on a flesh wound,” adding that at four thousand dollars a farm, “it might cover a few weeks of diesel costs.” As with other announcements (specifically, Russian diesel and imported ground beef) in recent months, Trump is fond of throwing out headline numbers that sound impressive but in actuality don’t do much in the way of helping farmers out with their double economic whammy of low crop prices and high input costs.

More generally, Trump’s reflexive need to look like he’s doing something substantive for producers and consumers has the unexpected political consequence of defining him as that word that he abhors — a socialist.

Disagree? If you consider socialism to be a system where the government intervenes in free market processes by altering free market outcomes, then Trump’s bailout is de facto socialism.

He has said “our country will never be a socialist country,” but, as with many of his other utterances, the president’s rhetoric often contradicts the president's reality.

Paying off farmers for financial troubles created by Trump’s flawed policies has been a recurring theme through both of his terms. He may hate the term, but when he needs to be, Trump is a socialist.

John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission. 

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

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