Suffering a paroxysm of anti-Pressler ranting on his blogging deathbed, Pat Powers launches an attack that epitomizes the rottenness of the South Dakota Republican philosophical core. Powers dings Pressler for a 1987 article advocating "an end to the safety net for South Dakota farmers."
The truth of this claim, like everything Powers blogs, is questionable. The intent of the claim is clear: Larry Pressler hates farmers!
If we look not at Pat's headline but at the actual text Pressler penned for the July 9, 1987, Christian Science Monitor, Pressler was talking about helping farmers escape the "vicious cycle" of subsidies that encourage surplus production, depress prices, and exacerbate environmental problems by driving farmers to plow erodable land. Pressler advocated an international version of our Conservation Reserve Program to help farmers:
In the United States, the National Wheatgrowers Association and several other farm groups have endorsed the concept of an international conservation reserve. Currently, farmers in Japan receive more than half their income from government payments. Farmers worldwide receive their production signals from government programs rather than the market. A reduction in global production of agricultural commodities would bring supply in line with demand, thus increasing market prices. This would allow governments to phase out government subsidies without bankrupting the world's farmers [Larry Pressler, "International Action on Agriculture Is Needed," Christian Science Monitor, 1987.07.09].
Pressler didn't want to end the safety net for South Dakota farmers. He wanted a safer net.
But fully contextual policy discussion be darned, the SDGOP has to make Pressler out to be Satan! The SDGOP chooses to do so by attacking Pressler for suggesting an alternative to a "safety net" that, strung for any less well-heeled bloc of down-home voters and donors, the SDGOP would call socialist government handouts.
And this critique comes from a party that elects a farm welfare queen as its conservative pin-up girl.
Basically, with this farm subsidies ploy, Pat Powers and his Republican friends want voters to turn against Pressler because he isn't liberal enough.
The South Dakota Republican Party has no principles left. Like Annette Bosworth, they'll toss any old word salad together if they think it will win them votes.