Profile in Courage

WHEN IS a farm bill not a farm bill?

When it’s a food-stamp bill with only some farm subsidies tacked on. Like this year. The numbers tell the story: Of the trillion dollars—yes, trillion—in government funds being dished out, $740 billion would go for food stamps, $200 billion for agricultural programs. Not even half the total. Whatever modest reforms may have been made to farm subsidies, the imbalance in this “farm bill” is obvious.

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When it’s more of a crass political calculation than a well-balanced piece of legislation. When, as usual and once again, it’s a great big combo meal designed to attract the support of both urban Democrats and farm-state Republicans. A product designed to set off the usual bipartisan feeding frenzy at the public trough. The sight is enough to make an old Arkansas boy want to yell Whoo Pig, Sooey!

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When it’s really an agribusiness bill designed to benefit mainly corporate “farmers,” the kind that never turned a spade in their lives. All the usual suspects have lined up for their more than fair share: the milk-and-dairy crowd, the sugar lobby, and, well, you name a vested interest and it’s likely to be in this juicy hodgepodge of hand outs. Complete with price controls for olive oil, “marketing” help for sheep and goat herders, promotion money for wood-burning heating systems and “healthy plants,” and so wastefully on. It’s come-and-get-it time on the Hill again.

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When it leaves out the cattle, hog and chicken farmers of Arkansas—and the smallholders who make up 70 percent of the state’s farmers but collect maybe only 15 percent of the government payments under this bill.

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When it’s another way to soak the taxpayers and burden shoppers with inflated prices at the supermarket and everywhere else.

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When stalwarts in Congress who have long since fought against waste in government—voices of reform and reason like Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Jeb Hensarling out of Texas, both champions of economy in government, can see right through it and try to warn the rest of us.

When is a farm bill not a farm bill? When it’s more about private grabbiness than the public good. When it inspires a revolt among the kind of Republicans in the House who have finally had enough. And who delivered a resounding No! to this grab in the House last Thursday. (The bill went down 195 to 234, an impressive rebuke to the forces of waste-as-usual.)

IT COMES as no surprise to find Arkansas’ own Tom Cotton among those who have tired of this shell game—or never went in for it in the first place. He knows that just calling something a farm bill doesn’t make it one. Of course he would vote against it; he was the lone member of the Arkansas delegation to vote against raising the debt ceiling, too, when he had the chance. This time he was the only member of the House from Arkansas to oppose this year’s farm bill.

Tom Cotton is no naif. He knows this kind of principled stand is going to draw flak from the Farm Bureau and any other lobby eager to beat him over the head with it. His vote is even more impressive when it’s no secret that he’s considering a run for the U.S. Senate next year. You can bet his opponent(s) will do everything possible to hold this vote against him, and use it to depict him as a Scrooge who’d deny the poor food (stamps) and oppress hard-working Arkansas farmers. In short, the usual demagoguery. But he doesn’t seem to be intimidated by it, not at all. And never was.

When he’s assailed next year for not following the popular will, of disregarding the needs and demands of his constituents, Congressman Cotton could do worse than to open any standard Treasury of Great Political Speeches and refer to the response of a British statesman—some might say the greatest British statesman—named Edmund Burke. In 1774, when an opponent accused him of ignoring the will of those he was supposed to represent in Parliament, he delivered his Speech to the Electors of Bristol, an address that is worth reading, and quoting, to this day:

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject . . . .

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion . . . .

To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience—these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect.

I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.

And yet flattery is often what an American political campaign amounts to, just as elections in Great Britain amounted to in Edmund Burke’s time: an exercise to see who can pander to the special interests most, or most appeal to the fears and emotions stirred by the apostles of class envy. No one would ever number Tom Cotton among such. Even those who might disagree with him on this issue or any other can respect him for that. He has his principles and, however unpopular they may be for the transient moment, the man sticks by them. He just might make a senator, and not only a senator but a great one.