Pandering to Rural Americans

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was apparently upset by a blog post written last weekend by Ezra Klein.  Klein wrote about the very obvious fact that cities are vastly more productive than rural areas and the government policy subsidizes rural middle America at the expense of cities on the coasts.  It should be pointed out that this is not news.  Consider the following:

More urbanized states on the coasts and in the upper midwest (aka blue states) are compelled to provide enormous subsidies to the rural states in the south and the Great Plains (aka red states).  The government (all levels) spent $180 billion on agricultural studies in 2009, according to one analysis.  They calculated that a staggering $62 out of every $100 earned by farmers came from the government.  Rural areas are home to more military bases, which provide another huge economic boost to those communities.

The irony of these rural recipients of government largesse voting Republican, complaining about freeloaders living off of the government and screaming for reduced government spending is usually lost on the Sarah Palin, mouth-breathing set.

The situation was also lost on Sec. Vilsack, apparently.  If you read through the transcript of his discussion with Ezra Klein, you'll see that his stance basically boils down to the following: these are good people, they grow your food, they're patriotic and decent and you shouldn't be so mean to them.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck is that supposed to mean?  I'm know that all of those things are very true of rural Americans.  Those are also all very true about urban, suburban and exurban Americans.  None of that provides any intrinsic justification for compelling our wealthier, more productive cities to pick up the tab for the less productive regions of the country.  As it happens, I don't necessarily have a huge problem with subsidizing rural areas.  I believe in policies that result in some redistribution of national resources.

What I don't believe in is acting as if the beneficiaries of such policies are entitled to those resources due to their upstanding character.  If we have an honest national discussion and conclude that we should have a policy of subsidizing the middle of the country, fine.  But until everyone is willing to be honest about the reality of who benefits from government redistribution, ignorant conservatives like Sarah Palin need shut the hell up about the "real Americans" in middle America and how they're better than the immoral liberals who pay their goddamn bills.