Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
In a message dated 8/9/02 7:14:44 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Sen. Robert Torricelli's Republican challenger has apparently decided to make the Torch's support for the latest farm bill an issue in this campaign, judging by this press release they put out after Torricelli apologized for his ethics violations. --James >> Thank you for this timely bit of evidence reinforcing my hypothesis that ag subsidies generally do not play well with urban voters. David
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
In a message dated 8/9/02 8:28:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "I've noticed in contest after contest media polls fairly consistently overstate support for the candidate percieved to be more liberal by 5-15%" That's interesting. Two serious questions. First, do I recall correctly that the last presidential polls were predicting something pretty close to a dead heat? (I wonder if there is a past poll database out there somewhere) That's not to contradict your observations, I really don't follow polls much so it's a vague memory. Second, do you think political pollsters are more accurate than media pollsters since their reputations (and paychecks?) hinge on closely tracking actual results? (Or are they more accurate at all?) Curiously yours, jsh >> The last election led me to say "fairly consistent;" it was the anomaly during the period in which I'd comparing polls to elections results.I think that, contrary to the way that some of statist-liberals and their allies within the new media view Bush (or perhaps cynically tried to portray him) he hasn't been seen as particularly conservatives by the electorate, and for many voters did not present a clear-but alternative to Gore. Many conservatives simply didn't vote for Bush; many news stories made much of the Nader impact on the election, but so far as I could tell they uniformly ignored the fact that Buchanan got more votes than the margin between Bush and Gore in states like Iowa (which Gore won). Furthermore I'd veture a guess that more conservatives simply stayed home than voted for Buchanan. Nor I think were many of the left-liberals particularly thrilled with Gore (whom many saw as a pawn of Big Business), and while a few of them did vote for Nader, I suspect many of them too stayed home. Thus a campaign that seemed to start out largely as a referendum on Bill Clinton seemed to end up largely as a personality contest between the frat-boy and the tree. Sincerely, David
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "I've noticed in contest after contest media polls fairly consistently overstate support for the candidate percieved to be more liberal by 5-15%" That's interesting. Two serious questions. First, do I recall correctly that the last presidential polls were predicting something pretty close to a dead heat? (I wonder if there is a past poll database out there somewhere) That's not to contradict your observations, I really don't follow polls much so it's a vague memory. Second, do you think political pollsters are more accurate than media pollsters since their reputations (and paychecks?) hinge on closely tracking actual results? (Or are they more accurate at all?) Curiously yours, jsh __ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
Sen. Robert Torricelli's Republican challenger has apparently decided to make the Torch's support for the latest farm bill an issue in this campaign, judging by this press release they put out after Torricelli apologized for his ethics violations. --James - My fellow New Jerseyans, I've let you down. I never should have accepted illegal gifts from a campaign contributor, nor acted as his Ambassador to foreign governments, nor denied ever doing anything at any time to betray the trust you placed in me. And I'm sorry. While we're at it, I never should have demanded that the CIA handcuff its field agents and make it tougher for them to penetrate foreign terrorist cells. And when virtually every intelligence professional said the CIA should rescind that policy, I should have agreed with them, rather than continuing to defend it. And I'm sorry. I never should have introduced legislation to raise the cost of prescription drugs by $11 BILLION in exchange for a measly $50,000 soft-money contribution to a campaign committee I controlled. I never should have voted for a $191 BILLION farm subsidies bill that will cost New Jersey households $4400 every year in higher taxes, just because I coveted $100,000 from out-of-state agribusinesses. And I never should have voted to keep toxic nuclear waste right here in our backyards, just because I lusted for $200,000 from Nevada special interests desperate to keep it out of THEIR state. And I'm sorry. My fellow New Jerseyans, there's a lot more I need to apologize for. But I've only got sixty seconds in this ad, and there's only so much special interest money I can grab. So for now, I'll leave you with this thought: next week, to erase any lingering doubts, I'm going to take the lie detector test recommended by my former colleague, Senator Lautenberg. Stay tuned.
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
In a message dated 8/9/02 1:37:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << While it might be true that urban dwellers don't support direct farm subsidies to the same extent as rural dwellers (though my bet is that the support is still large) what they do support is food stamps which are another form of agricultural support - the quid pro quo between ag. subsidies and food stamps was always recognized in the political sphere. Alex Tabarrok >> Traditionally the small and indirect impact of food stamps on ag commondity prices has been utterly swamped by the large and direct impact of commondity price supports. I grew increasingly disillusioned with politics during my years in Iowa and for the last few stopped following what happened with commondity price supports; I know that under the Contract With America Congress passed a multi-year phaseout of the price-support program that would have had them all phased out by now (it didn't apply to the separate programs for tobacco, and the indirect federally-enforced milk and fruit cartels). Even if the ag price supports have been fully phased out, the food stamp program still has almost no impact on retail food prices, much less ag commodities, and of course urbanites don't think of food stamps as ag subsidies. What makes you suspect there's strong urban support for ag subidies (and would that include tobacco price supports and the government-enforced fruit and milk cartel arrangements)? I see little evidence for such support in the voting patterns of the reprentatives in Congress. David Levenstam
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
While it might be true that urban dwellers don't support direct farm subsidies to the same extent as rural dwellers (though my bet is that the support is still large) what they do support is food stamps which are another form of agricultural support - the quid pro quo between ag. subsidies and food stamps was always recognized in the political sphere. Alex Tabarrok
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
In a message dated 8/8/02 2:46:06 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Regarding the support of the public for farm subsidies etc. here is another example. The Washington Post reports in a poll that support for Amtrak subsidies is very strong - and it is strong regardless of Amtrak use. Here is the link and some key sentences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43767-2002Aug4.html >> >From following politics, presidential politics, intensively I have become wary of any polls conducted on behalf of major American news media organization. I've noticed in contest after contest media polls fairly consistently overstate support for the candidate percieved to be more liberal by 5-15%, and I suspect the same polling biases that distort those polls support similar polls asking questions of government policy. Even if we were to accept the results of the poll on their face, it's not clear that they have much to say about support for agricultural subsidies. Urban dwellers and suburbanites often have strong anti-rural biases (the reverse applies as well) and in congressional politics the people who most support most of the welfare-regulatory state, urban Democrats, almost never demonstrate much if any support for agricultural subsidies. The main proponents of ag subsidies, typically rural Republicans, almost always demonstrate hostility toward non-agricultural welfare programs. It may well be that Americans, if they really so support Amtrak subsidies, do so even if they haven't used it because they can easily imagine using it, whereas most Americans don't imagine themselves receiving ag subsidies (not knowing about the likes of Sam Donaldson, whose mohair farms receive subsidies designed to provide World War I US Army uniforms). I'd like to see a poll, or a series of polls taken over a decade or two, conducted by Zogby the one pollster who consistently avoids the liberal bias contained in most American presidential polls, before I draw any conclusions about whether American voters support ag subsidies (or for that matter, Amtrak). Sincerely, David Levenstam
Re: farm subsidies/amtrak
Even funnier: The following four people took a combined total of SIX train trips in recent years. But listen to how they wax poetic over the wonders of rail: Twana Jones, 33, of New York, who responded to a Post poll earlier in July in which people were asked about their travel habits, including their attitude toward Amtrak, said she had taken two personal Amtrak trips in the past few years, one of them as far as Kansas City, Mo. "I enjoyed the trip, but it takes a long time," she said. Jones said Amtrak needs to speed up the service, but "I certainly don't think they need to cut any of the service. I want them to add more routes to it." John Cebrookes, 57, a respondent who lives in Florida, said he enjoyed two Amtrak trips over the past few years. "Don't cut them off," he said. "Let the trains keep running. Craig Smiley, 66, of Birmingham, Ala., said he took one trip on Amtrak years ago to Detroit and found it "beautiful." Ron Kessler, 55, of Boston, said he takes frequent trips to New York and Washington and had tried the train once. "But the problem is they don't run very often and you get out of a meeting early, you don't have an option," he said. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not necessary that anyone but himself should understand it." Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
RE: farm subsidies/amtrak
Sounds like Arthur Okun's "leaky bucket" metaphor for describing the efficiency-equity tradeoff is gaining widespread acceptance by the median voter :-) -Original Message- From: Alex Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 2:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: farm subsidies/amtrak Regarding the support of the public for farm subsidies etc. here is another example. The Washington Post reports in a poll that support for Amtrak subsidies is very strong - and it is strong regardless of Amtrak use. Here is the link and some key sentences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43767-2002Aug4.html A large majority of Americans favor continuing federal subsidies to Amtrak, and a substantial percentage would increase federal funding so the ailing passenger railroad can increase service, according to a Washington Post poll. The survey showed that pro-Amtrak sentiment was somewhat stronger in the Northeast, which already has extensive train service, but all sections of the country were solidly in the Amtrak camp. All age groups, education levels and household incomes were in favor of Amtrak subsidies and the 18-to-34 age group supported the subsidies overwhelmingly. It also may help explain why members of Congress and other politicians from across the country have supported Amtrak for many years, even when their states or districts have only one train that passes through in the middle of the night. Alex
farm subsidies/amtrak
Regarding the support of the public for farm subsidies etc. here is another example. The Washington Post reports in a poll that support for Amtrak subsidies is very strong - and it is strong regardless of Amtrak use. Here is the link and some key sentences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43767-2002Aug4.html A large majority of Americans favor continuing federal subsidies to Amtrak, and a substantial percentage would increase federal funding so the ailing passenger railroad can increase service, according to a Washington Post poll. The survey showed that pro-Amtrak sentiment was somewhat stronger in the Northeast, which already has extensive train service, but all sections of the country were solidly in the Amtrak camp. All age groups, education levels and household incomes were in favor of Amtrak subsidies and the 18-to-34 age group supported the subsidies overwhelmingly. It also may help explain why members of Congress and other politicians from across the country have supported Amtrak for many years, even when their states or districts have only one train that passes through in the middle of the night. Alex
