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Joe
Miller admits his guilt
He hates
government handouts
Alaska Republican U.S. Senate
candidate Joe Miller, who believes the federal government is on the
brink
of bankruptcy and has called for an end to the "welfare state,"
received federal farm subsidies for land that
the fiscal conservative owned in Kansas in the 1990s.
The acknowledgment by the Miller campaign that he accepted farm
subsidies follows a story by the
Alaska Dispatch, which discovered through a Freedom of Information Act
request that he got $7,235
in subsidies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1991-97.
It drew a sharp response from critics, including the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee,
which headlined a news release: "Extremist Joe Miller also a hypocrite."
Separately, a blog last week reported that Miller, an attorney,
received subsidies for land in Alaska.
The campaign called that a "manufactured story from a Democratic blog,"
and said that the land Miller
has owned in Alaska isn't under production and has received no federal
farm subsidies.
Miller, a self-described "constitutional conservative" who believes
federal spending must be reined in,
won last month's GOP primary over U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whom he'd
cast as part of the problem
in an out-of-control Washington.
Miller's message of less government has resonated with conservatives
and the nascent tea party movement
in Alaska, a still-young state that's long relied heavily on
federal money and earmarks to operate and to
build up and maintain its infrastructure. Miller has called for less
government regulation and giving Alaska
greater control over its resource base so it can take charge of its own
future and wean itself off what he
considers an overdependence on government.
Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said Miller isn't against all federal
spending, "but one could argue, since he's
calling for some belt tightening as a nation, why not start by forgoing
these subsidies himself?" He answered his
question, saying, in part, that in Kansas, in the '90s, some of the
crops grown on Miller's land were eligible for aid,
and "The government offers these payments in exchange for farmers
growing certain crops."
"Like the vast majority of farmers in that region, Joe received payment
from the USDA
in exchange for managing his crops according to government standards,"
DeSoto said...
Does this matter?
Didn't Bat-Shit Bachmann get caught taking $100K in subsidies after
railing against tham?
We need to remember that Teabeggers aren't into facts and
evidence.
They don't care if their heroes practice what they preach.
They just want to get rid of that NitWH.