Yesterday John Boehner tried to claim that President Obama “doesn’t give a damn about the middle class“. Now let’s look at who really doesn’t “give a damn”.
First, get ready. You are going to see your grocery bill go up even more. The cause is something that no party can control, the weather:
Corn prices are now north of $8.10/bushel, a new record high.
This is above the previous record of $7.99 in July 2011.
A historic drought has caused corn crop yields to shrink and prices to explode higher.
Some form of corn or refined corn goes into countless types of goods. Eventually, this could hit producer and consumer prices.
Corn is used in all kinds of food, mostly in the form of corn syrup. But it’s not just corn either:
The price of soybeans hit an all-time high Wednesday as a devastating heat wave continued to pound crops in fields.
Soybeans for August delivery rose 44.5 cents, or 2.7 percent, to finish at $16.835 per bushel. Wheat prices ended at the highest level since the spring of 2008 and corn prices are pushing toward their all-time high set in June 2011.
But what does this have to do with John Boehner? Well last month the Senate passed a farm bill, with huge bi-partisan support, that would provide help to farmers and help keep prices down. Since then that bill has been sitting in the House with no action. John Boehner and the Republican leadership have sat on it, while taking up things like repealing healthcare, a 33rd vote on a measure that will never pass the Senate and get a veto-proof majority.
Now members of Congress, including members of Boehner’s own party want action:
U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem and a Democratic colleague have gathered more than 50 signatures from both parties urging House leaders to bring the farm bill to the floor.
Noem and Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont in their letter are urging their parties’ House leaders to bring the farm bill up before the August recess.
They say that the House Agriculture Committee has done its work and ask that the legislation be debated, conferenced and passed into law before the current bill expires.
Of course this would provide relief to the people and John Boehner doesn’t care about them. Instead he is only worried about November. In his mind the more the people pay at the grocery, the bigger the chance of his party winning.
And the audacity doesn’t stop there. John Boehner also doesn’t “give a damn” about the deficit. Why? Because this same bill is a deficit reducing bill. It contains provisions to close some idiotic loopholes in things like food stamps.
Did you know that people who won the lottery can still get food stamps? Well that’s the case and this bill fixes that.
But John Boehner “doesn’t give a damn”. He would rather play politics instead of trying to fix one of our broken systems.
This isn’t about right or left, Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal. This is about right and wrong. John Boehner is the one who is wrong right now and he needs to do what is right. Urge him and the Republican leadership to help out the American family by passing this bill and easing the pain at the grocery store. Urge him to fix some ludicrous loopholes in the welfare system that costs our country millions. Urge him to stop doing symbolic votes that will never go anywhere and do the work for the people!