Everyone is speculating on Iowa and the results of the upcoming republican caucuses. And while it is true the winner of Iowa is far from guaranteed to win the nomination, a victory translates into campaign dollars and an untold value in free advertising. And a poor result by any candidate will most likely be an end to their campaign.
When founding this nation our founding fathers created a balance between the House of Representatives and the Senate to ensure that the interests of more populous states do not outweigh the interest of more rural states. That is why one house represents each state per weight of their population and one house gives equal weight to each state no matter how small.
And in our primary system it is right to start out with a number of smaller states first, so a single candidate does not bury their opposition with the results from a single large state such as New York. But should the first state always be Iowa? Yes, they don’t determine the candidate but may I suggest perceptions weigh more here than reality. Who in politics can afford to ignore or oppose the interests of Iowa?
I do not believe it is by coincidence that many Insurance companies have headquarters in Iowa. What better way to protect their interests? And this is a problem? A sign of how deep special interests and big government have dominated our lives as, even in Paul Ryan’s plans for reforming medicare and medicaid, health care is all about insurance policies. What happened to the days when insurance was for catastrophic events and people paid out of pocket for their routine medical expenses? How much does the processing of claims add to our medical costs? Is their any candidate that doesn’t suggest all healthcare to be insurance based?
And then there is corn. Ethanol decrease fuel economy so there is no savings in fuel burned, and it produces greenhouse gases in its production and distribution. Its existence is a complete contradiction to its supposed purpose, yet subsidies continue and its use is still mandated. Of course Iowa is the leading corn state but not the only one.
And then there is corn syrup. We drank a lot of soda when we were kids and it all contained cane sugar. Yes, maybe we were more active but I don’t think that explains the obesity issue young people face today. Corn syrup is not a natural product produced through basic processes such as drying, grinding and pressing. It takes days to cook with the help of sulfuric acid to produce. If our diets suffer from anything it is the complicated processing processes that alter our food.
And there is plenty of sugar, they are using it for fuel in Brazil where they have recently discovered massive oil reserves, and that is just offshore. Honestly, oil seems to be just about everywhere in great abundance. But we are not considering importing sugar from Brazil but ethanol. And ethanol is just as bad a fuel in Brazil as it is here.
And all this, ethanol and replacing all sweeteners with corn syrup (read the labels!), drives up the price of corn and alters what crops are produced, not only here but around the world. This makes all our food prices rise with disastrous effects in poorer nations. Food riots are becoming common place and fathom still strikes poorer populations. And of course rising food and energy prices are not part of the inflation equation.
When we look at the checks and balances our founding fathers placed in our system of government is it wrong to say the primary system our parties have created are un-American? When other states tried to schedule their primaries before Iowa, Iowa continued to push theirs up earlier and earlier, determined to keep the first spot. how can you scream special interest, un-American any louder?
Yes smaller and midsized states should dominate early primaries but not the same ones each election cycle.
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