Pander to me

The other day I saw an ad from our congressional representative Baron Hill.

After showing a frustrated couple dealing with bills, the ad collapsed into a populist dribble attacking speculators and oil companies. I was inspired to look at the ads from our 2006 Congressional election and found some other gems.

The worst, hands down, was a Mike Sodrel ad suggesting that Baron Hill was “rated X” because he voted against legislation restricting violent and sexual video games. An older Baron Hill ad got me going, too.

It was about “Hoosier values,” which apparently consist of “responsibility,” “faith,” “the sacredness of a union between a man and a women” and “honesty.”

Clearly Hill was, and still is, just pandering to his view of southern Indiana voters: socially conservative and economically insecure. But I couldn’t help but wonder what Hill’s stances would be if he spent all his time pandering to me. Maybe he would ...

Cut farm subsidies: The real Baron Hill voted for the 2008 Farm Bill, which he no doubt suggested was in the interest of Indiana farmers. The bill cost about $300 billion and promises subsidies to farmers making as much as $1.5 million if married, and up to $750,000 if single.

Even for low-income farmers it’s debatable whether they are best served by a government program that pays them to stay with a job that is making little money.

Encourage immigration: On his Web site Hill suggests that the problem of illegal immigration has been linked to “economic depression.” He also suggests that providing a path to legalization for those already here – or as he says, “amnesty” – would be misguided. 

Immigration, legal or otherwise, tends to put downward pressure on some wages, but on the whole it helps economic growth. It would be nice to have a congressman fighting to open up the immigration process to both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants.

Support gay rights: Even though Hill voted against a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, his talk about marriage being a sacred union between a man and women makes me cringe.

Marriage is an important institution, both socially and economically, but there is no compelling reason for excluding gays from this union. Nor is there a very compelling reason to prevent gay couples from adopting, as Hill did when he voted to ban gay adoptions in D.C.

Stop bashing oil companies and speculators: If we should be moving away from oil, that doesn’t mean we should treat oil companies as if they are fundamentally evil.

Baron Hill recently supported legislation aimed at curbing “excessive” energy speculation even though most economists agree speculation was part of the normal supply and demand process that moderated a steep rise in prices.

I suppose I can give Hill some credit. He is a better friend of free trade than plenty of other Democrats, and he has a reasonable amount of fiscal discipline. Still, on some issues he panders instead of leading.