Jon on Jonah

I assume Chait's right about what he's written. OTOH, I think this is wrong: But to suggest [conservatives] favor agriculture subsidies on principle would be silly. There are a bunch of different types of conservatives, and some of them--esp. as the party has moved south--are agrarians, I think. Agrarians supporting farm subsidies on "moral health of the nation" grounds doesn't seem implausible to me.

Tim is right. To argue that conservatives oppose ag subsidies on principle is silly. I've heard it argued not just on moral health of the nation grounds, but defense (it would be unwise to depend on food imports the way we depend on oil, etc).

If you want to argue about what "real" conservatives think, you have to define real conservatism. I suspect the Harvard Business School definition is very different from the Kansas corn field definition.

And Brian, I have no idea why you would want it to get out that Jonah had anything positive to say about you. Seems like something one would hide.

Vanity, Mike. Vanity. It has little in the way of bias.

I think Chait's talking about conservative politicians here, who, though they may have no actual deep-down philosophical problem with ag subsidies, pay lip service to the idea of less government every day as part of their careers.