Democrats must get behind cutting red tape

22 February 2025

Democrats are decrying Trump’s rule-bending, rapid-fire changes. However, to appeal to rural voters, they must find ways to work within their current confines to back changes that most folks support.

The most consistent complaint I hear in rural America is over regulation. In fact one of the most popular books that circulates from time to time in agricultural communities is Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal by Joel Saladin.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Justice Gorsuch came out with his book “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” this past year.

Trump has addressed that concern. Sure, he is bending the rules and moving fast, but at least he’s doing something.

Rural voters are not hearing how Democrats would do this differently, if at all. It seems that when Democrats have tried in the past, they have failed. Kamala Harris would not even address the issue, even though she was urged to do so.

Instead Democrats are complaining that Trump is moving too fast, without enough thought, and he isn’t adhering to all of the laws and rules in doing so.

Welcome to the club.

It is impossible to follow all the rules in the real world

An invisible wall that Democrats are facing is that in the real world we all have to deal with OSHA, the EEOC, the health department, USDA, and the myriad of rules and laws that thwart economic activity. As any lawyer will point out, it is almost impossible to go through the day without committing at least one law – often a felony.

On a very mundane issue, it is now a felony in virtually every state to urinate in public. Where do you think a farmer plowing a field relieves himself? And public means any place that the public can see. Fortunately selective enforcement is the farmer’s friend – no county sheriff is going to arrest a farmer in his own wheat field. Yet we do talk about it - farmers constantly joke about how many felonies they commit in a day.

Uber would never have gotten off the ground had it followed the rules. Instead it launched its business model, and then got the rules changed.

Similarly it is so often the case that when we do try to follow the rules you end up getting punished for a myriad of other things.

The narrative is that it is almost always better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission in today’s regulatory landscape.  And never let the government on your land – they are no longer your friend.

Indeed the only group of people who can really get through the day without confronting this regulatory and legal wall is our chattering class of political commentators and pundits. It is invisible to them.

Democrats need follow Mark Rutte, bend like a reed, and start talking about their better alternative

Democrats are shifting to the tactic of filing lawsuits to ensure that money that has already been authorized by Congress in fact gets spent.

It might be better to be thinking about how you’re going to influence the legislation that ultimately unwinds some of that initial spending.

On virtually every initiative Trump has proposed there has been a good progressive alternative out there that Democrats simply ignore.  SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or “food stamps,” is a great example.

Lean into SNAP and get farmers on your side

SNAP is 81% of spending in the Farm Bill.  Yet only 10% of that goes to farmers.  It all goes to large corporate food processors.  The #1 purchase with SNAP benefits is soft drinks.  Bottled water, candy, ice cream, cookies and bag snacks are all in the top 20.  Not a single fruit or vegetable is in the top twenty items purchased with SNAP benefits.

How much do you think a farmer receives from Nestle on the sale of a bottle of water?  (Which many of us think is unethical to buy in the first place).

Farmers refer to these products as luxury processed foods. 

Why are we subsidizing Coca Cola and Nestle in the Farm Bill but not farmers?

According to Senate Agriculture Committee staffers, farmers receive 10% of each SNAP dollar.  The remainder goes to processors and distributors. 

Naturally, farmers have a very dim view of SNAP.  In fact, one of the legislative initiatives of the Farm Bureau this year is to get our educational system to teach students how to prepare meals at home using raw foodstuffs.

 I suspect that Republicans will be successful in drastically trimming the SNAP program if left to their own devices.

Democrats can step in and get farmers on their side

Democrats have never been able to address this issue because of the donor dollars that the food processors contribute to campaigns. But now we are in a different environment.

Democrats could step forward with a bill that cuts all luxury processed foods from SNAP.

Or just start with soft drinks – we spend $10 Billion per year in SNAP just on soft drinks.

My back of the envelope test would be that you should be able to buy any product that a family farmer buys. That certainly does not include candy, Diet Coke, potato chips, or bottled water.

If we actually required recipients to buy food with their SNAP benefits, money would start flowing to the farmer. And farmers tend to believe that we have an obligation to help feed the poor. Let’s do that.

A pivot would provide nothing but benefit to Democrats

• It would be better for the environment to have less processed food being sold

• It would improve the diets of the needy

• It would benefit farmers if SNAP dollars were spent on fruits, vegetables, grains, meat and dairy

• It would help rehabilitate the reputation farmers hold of Democrats

• It would make it much more likely that farmers would support keeping funding levels relatively stable so long as those dollars went to farmers rather than a handful of corporate giants.

The trick for Democrats would be to ensure that they approached this from the farmers’ point of view. 

SNAP is low hanging fruit that Democrats must grab

As it currently stands, Democrats are complaining without proposing anything constructive.

How government works is going through massive upheaval. It is chaotic and blunt. But it isn’t going away.

Democrats must work within the current conditions to best address the needs of Americans.

Mark W. Yonkman                                                                                           22 February 2025