Last week, Mudflats posted about the $14,000 in farm subsidies Joe Miller took for his barley farm. Miller denied it saying it was that other Joe Miller who took the subsidies. While Mudflats continues to explore that situation, the report spurred the Alaska Dispatch to do some more investigating.
Guess what they found?
Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller, an outspoken critic of federal funding, has in the past obtained federal farm subsidies in the amount of more than $7,000 for Kansas farmland, an Alaska Dispatch investigation has revealed....
After Alaska Dispatch received Miller's farm subsidy records under the Freedom of Information Act and told the Miller campaign about them on Monday, Miller's staff confirmed he received federal payments for 140 acres of cropland he owned in Kansas between 1990 and 1998.
"Like the vast majority of farmers in that region, Joe received payment from the USDA in exchange for managing his crops according to government standards," said campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto in an e-mail Monday night.
The best quote, though, comes from what DeSoto told the Anchorage Daily News.
“This was back in the 90’s, the situation the country was in was far different than now,” he said.
Yep, the situation was far different then. We had a Democratic President, and a huge budget surplus because of his policies. But, aside from Miller's new endorsement of Clinton policies, it looks like Joe Miller has situational principles. So while he says
"The growth of stimulus programs, the growth of basically government bailouts to industries that are failing, it's not the American way. It's not the free market way. And it's killing the competitive edge."
it was the American, free market way back in the 1990s, when he did it. It's just it's not any more, when he's running for office with the backing of a bunch of government-haters. Good to know.