Is Boxer the best we have?

• Senator Boxer has gained a reputation for being an environmental advocate. There is much in her record to support that and she will tell you so every time she gets a chance.

However, there is one further trait that Boxer shares with her sister legislators from California, Feinstein and Pelosi. She knows from where the money flows and that trumps everything else. I call you attention to the following report on Boxer's relationship to the California's Big Ag: San Francisco Chronicle: Aug. 02, 2007

.Sen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday she would not support a $250,000 limit on farmers receiving federal crop subsidies, saying it would be a disaster for the state's cotton and rice growers.

"It's not an easy issue for California," Boxer said. "We have our rice people and we have our cotton people."

Once again, big ag companies with their mega$ subsidies. In the previous congress, we blamed it all on the Pombo Republicans. There is not excuse this time other than the fact that money corrupts politics and that Boxer is not immune.

Today, I received an action alert from the Center for Rural Affairs. This Nebraska based group recognizes that power that California's Congressional delegation has in regards to agricultural policy. Right now, they are singling out Boxer, especially in light of the statement quoted above. These huge subsidies are at the root of many of this nations problems:

• locally they support environmentally damaging cotton production where it need not be.
• nationally they are causing the demise of the family farm and the rural economies that depend on those farmers.
• internationally, these same subsidies are destroying the agricultural sector of the economies of some of the poorest countries (e.g. sub-Saharan Africa), forcing rural land owners into the cities and creating breeding grounds for anti-American terrorism.

I would ask you to file a protest with Boxer regarding her position. You can call her office at one of the phone numbers listed on her website or you can do it quickly and easily online here.