Al Gore, a career “public servant,”
reportedly became a billionaire just a few years after leaving his last
government job as vice president of the United States. He achieved this
miracle, according to news reports, through various “green” business
deals. Such deals are always proprietary and few details about them
ever become public. They usually involve the ancient mercantilist
practice of bribing politicians for a special favor or subsidy. The
bribe-giver becomes wealthy, and the politicians granting the favor/subsidy
have the funds to finance the next campaign. Let’s call it crony
environmentalism.
A rare glimpse of how crony environmentalism works was recently revealed
in a November 12 article in the Baltimore Sun entitled “$1 could lease
state’s $2.8 million farm.” The article was about an “agreement” to be
presented to the State Board of Public Works between one Cleo Braver, an
“environmental lawyer-turned-organic farmer” and the state government.
Ms. Braver is also described as having donated “more than $40,000” to
various Democratic Party campaigns in recent years, including $6,000 in the
most recent governor’s race. The same politicians she gave all this
money to sit on the State Board of Public Works that is being asked to grant
her this massive subsidy.
The “agreement” that was reportedly reached between Braver and the
administration of Maryland’s Democratic Governor, Martin O’Malley, was to
lease to her a 255 acre farm in Kent County, Maryland that is worth almost $3
million for $1/year. In addition, she will be given $500,000 in state
tax money and her proposed “food hub” for the distribution of agricultural
produce will be nonprofit, which is to say, it will not pay taxes.
The ostensible purpose of all this is to establish a “food hub” on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland that can “distribute organic and sustainably
produced food.” Ah yes, there are the magic words: organic and
sustainable. That makes everything kosher in the eyes of Cleo Braver,
an “advocate for green farming techniques.” She claims there are “food
deserts” in the region that lack “healthy food.” What nonsense.
When pressed by a committee of the state assembly, Braver even admitted that
“organic farming would not be required” for her hugely-subsidized “food hub”
but would only be encouraged.
There are of course many food distribution hubs on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland. They are privately-owned, capitalistic, and
unsubsidized. And they distribute “organic” as well as non-organic food
as consumer demand dictates. There is no need at all, in other words,
for a government-subsidized food hub there. It will only allow Cleo
Braver become wealthy by unfairly competing with the already-existing
businesses. The Baltimore Sun quoted Ed Bush, the general
manager of one of the existing food hubs, who said: “She would have a
substantial advantage over the regular taxpaying Joe who – if we want to
build our business – we have to pay for it in cash.” Exactly right, Ed.
Ms. Braver also owns an organic farm in Kent County, Maryland. This
means that she can sell her goods to the food hub that she also owns, thanks
to the massive government subsidy, and “pay herself what she thinks is fair value,”
said Mr. Bush. “Prices should be set by the market” instead, he told
the Baltimore Sun. Amen, Brother Bush.
Corruption, cronyism, and socialistic central planning of agricultural
markets, hidden by the rhetoric of “green farming,” is what Maryland Governor
Martin O’Malley calls “smart growth” policy. Crony environmentalism
would be more descriptive. So-called smart growth is a very dumb, and
very corrupt idea.
The Best of Thomas DiLorenzo
