While I've given a lot of attention to the Democratic Senators that have supported the fundamental Freedom Democrat principles of social justice and fiscal responsibility, I've ignored some of their House counterparts. Senators Feingold, Wyden, and Bingaman are doing a great job, but we should also praise Congressman Barney Frank (Social Score 93.33%, Economic Score 53.33%) as one of the Freedom Democrat heroes in the House of Representatives. Last year, Congressman Frank was one of the few members, Democrat or Republican, to have an economic score over 50% in the Freedom Democrats Scorecard. But I don't think I ever expected him to be mentioning Austrian economists on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Chairman, I am here to confess my reading incomprehension. I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one. Now, it violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered.

So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture. Now, it may be written in high German, and that may be why I have not been able to discern it, but there is no greater contrast in America today than between the free enterprise rhetoric of so many conservatives and the statist, subsidized, inflationary, protectionist, anti-consumer agricultural policies, and this is one of them.

In particular, I have listened to people, and some of us have said let us protect workers and the environment in trade; let us not have unrestricted free trade; but let us have trade that respects worker rights and environmental rights. And we have been excoriated for our lack of concern for poor countries.

There is no greater obstacle, as it is now clear in the Doha round, to the completion of a comprehensive trade policy than the American agricultural policy, with one exception, European agricultural policy, which is much worse and just as phony.

Sugar is an example. This program is an interference with the legitimate efforts at economic self-help in many foreign nations. So I appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Arizona [Jeff Flake] and the gentleman from Oregon [Earl Blumenauer]. Here is a chance for some of my free-enterprise-professing friends to get honest with themselves, and now maybe we will see some born-again free enterprisers in the agricultural field.

Splendid! I'm sorry now that I posted on DailyKos earlier today, this is the sort of rhetoric that people on the liberal blogs need to hear and I hope that coming from one of their own will make it stick.

On a related note, I would like to take another opportunity to urge you to voice your support for Frank Gonzalez, our Democratic candidate in the Florida 21st. He's working hard to win the Democracy For America (DFA) endorsement of his campaign. Just go to their website and you are just a few clicks away from helping him get a major boost to his campaign.