John Block Reports from Washington

 Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the Renewable Fuels Association, Wal-Mart Stores, Monsanto, and John Deere. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary—

Rural America has not been happy with the direction our federal government has taken in the last 2 years. Now, we have a mid-term election coming up in less than 50 days that could flip the control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans. There is a remote chance that the Democrats could also lose control of the Senate. Regardless, there is no question but the policy direction that President Obama and his party have pursued since the last election is going to change.

The anger in the country is not dominated by the war as in the last election. Social issues are pushed to the back burner. Jobs and the economy are in the spotlight. But just as high on the agenda and related is the voters’ intense consensus that government is too big, government spends too much, government regulates too much, government taxes too much. Our debt is unsustainable. It’s time to insist that individuals take more personal responsibility.

Sounds like the “Tea Party movement” and it is. Sounds like Ronald Reagan.

I am hopeful that after this election, we will have enough new conservative voices in the Congress to begin to move us in a new direction.

1. Stop EPA – EPA is out of control, wanting to regulate dust on farms. When a combine goes through the field, there is going to be dust. They want to tell us what we can do with our ponds and little creeks on our farms. They intend to regulate CO2, and I don’t agree with that either.
2. Government should stop trying to tax everything they don’t like. They want to tax soft drinks, they want to regulate fast food, they want to tax, tax, tax. Why? Because they want the money to spend on their pet programs. With a new Congress, we can stop the rush to tax everything and everyone. Maybe we can get some relief on the death tax. How irresponsible can a government be with the tax this year dropping to zero and next year scheduled to jump to 55 percent.
3. When we turn to farm programs, we can expect to take our cuts, but that’s OK if other programs are put under the knife also.
4. Finally, on trade – maybe, just maybe, trade will get some attention.

In this election, if we can replace a large number of the tax-and-spend liberals, Ronald Reagan would be proud. In closing, I would encourage you to access my website which archives my radio commentaries dating back 10 years and will go back 20 years when complete. Check on what I said back then. Go to www.johnblockreports.com.

Until next week, I am John Block in Washington.