ustxtxb_obs_1985_11_08_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

-\\.1.1 and Associates 1117 West 5th Street Austin, Texas 78703 REALTOR Representing all types of properties in Austin and Central Texas Interesting & unusual property a specialty. 477-3651 E Printers Stationers Mailers Typesetters High Speed Web Offset Publication Press Counseling Designing Copy Writing Editing Trade Computer Sales and Services Complete Computer Data Processing Services *FUTURA PRESS AUSTIN TEXAS FlUPTURSII 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 1 10 NOVEMBER 8, 1985 that position because no individual farmer can cut back and have an impact on what’s going to happen in the next county or the next state. That has to be a national program. So what we did was to offer a supplymanagement program that would allow farmers to produce only the number of bushels and bales and gallons that there East Dallas Printing Company Full Service Union Printing 211 S. Peak Dallas, Tx 75226 was an actual demand for in this country, in the world cash and credit markets, and in the world hunger market, and that’s how much we would produce. In return for which, farmers would get a high price floor. That meant that what they produced would be sold in the marketplace, which meant it was a zero crop subsidy payment program to the farmers. There was no tax exposure under this. Instead, as I say, the House of Representatives voted last week to reject this, and it’s voted out a piece of legislation that is going to cost somewhere between $37 billion and a $100 billion over the next three years, nobody seems exactly sure, and it’s not going to save any farmers. Well, we’re on to the Senate with that program. Senator Harkin is carrying the bulk of our water over there. We’re going to be active. The problem isn’t going away and neither are we going to go away. But the point I want to make to you is that that was a populist-oriented solution to create a new mechanism, not to do anything negative to the Cargills and Continentals and the big cotton shippers and grain traders of the world that hold prices down on farmers, not to try to bust them up or reorganize the economy, but to create an additional marketing channel starting with the farmer with the person that is the wealth creater in the society. And it did it without heavy infusions of tax dollars involved. . . . 1V1Y POINT is, again, that the role of government in all of these populist approaches to problem-solving is to serve as an activist as an anti-establishment institution helping people help themselves by getting involved in free enterprise. I believe in free enterprise, but not like Exxon does, putting it up at their annual meeting and saying, “We are free enterprise,” and then clubbing anybody that dares to try to come out there against them. I believe in a thousand flowers blooming out there. And that means that government can form partnerships, be a catalyst to help free up the enterprise of people. And so you use the “free” in free enterprise not as an adjective but as a verb. If we do that, then we have a program that we can go to the people with. And that’s my third and final point, which is that we’ve got to go to those people with passion. You hear all of these people saying we’ve got to tone it down, avoid loud noises and hot appeals, don’t upset the people. The Democrats keep getting that kind of advice. And these people point to the South and say, “The the South’s filled with all these conservative moderates. Now let’s not wake them up; they’d be real upset if anybody said anything loud.” The South is a culture that has invented better than two dozen pepper sauces to put on its breakfast eggs. That is not a moderate culture, it seems to me. And we like our politics just as spicy as that. You cannot beat pepper sauce with milk toast, and that’s pretty much what these people would have us do. If you want to look at recent history, look at Mr. Reagan, who was the hot right-wing radical candidate against Mr. Carter, son of the South and a clear moderate, or against Mr. Mondale. The hot candidate beat the moderate candidate both times and, I think, will every time. . . . people do want to know that you believe in your own program and believe in the constituencies that you claim to want to serve. So we need to combine that populist principle, programs, and passions. And if we do that we’ll win. Not automatically, of course, but at least you’re in the fight and you’re in the fight with integrity and you’re in the fight with the hope to win and a hope to make a difference in this country. This is no time for Democrats to be ducking their heads and hiding, hibernating and hoping this Republican wave is going to go away. It’s a time to go to the countryside and to fight. . . .