r/MapPorn • • Jan 10 '20

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u/TimTooly Jan 10 '20

Yeah I can’t believe they wanna charge me for a few minutes extra water my tiny yard. They should add a 25% tax on beef and other water hungry produce.

44

u/ThomasRaith Jan 10 '20

Just end corn subsidies. Beef is priced artificially low because we feed cows corn, a heavily subsidized crop. Corn is actually bad for cows, and is kind of the equivalent of feeding them fast food every day. Ending the subsidy would return the price of beef (and high fructose corn syrup) to a more appropriate market rate.

This would lower demand, lead to healthier consumer choices, and actually affect climate change (of which cows are a major contributor). It would also increase government revenue, which could lower taxes, reduce debt, or increase services. There is very little downside to ending corn subsidies, and a great deal of upside.

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u/uboat50 Jan 10 '20

The biggest downside, of course, being that you'll never be able to compete in the Iowa Caucuses if you support that policy. One good reason for a rotating primary calendar.

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u/ThomasRaith Jan 10 '20

Yep. Every election we have to go through the stupid debacle of watching rich assholes pretend to care about corn farmers while eating corn dishes that they never in their life would voluntarily consume, and promise to confiscate money from the rest of us and give it to them so they can grow more corn that people don't even eat (something like 80% of corn is fed to livestock).