Youtube/CNN Debate

Didn't watch tonight's debate but I read the transcript. I haven't committed to any candidate thus far but I have been eliminating a few (Tancredo, Hunter, Huckabee). While I hadn't made up my mind about Romney he took himself out of contention with this:

Ted Faturos: Hi, I'm Ted Faturos from Manhattan Beach, California.

Mmmmmm, nothing says delicious like cheap corn subsidized by the American taxpayer. For a lot of Americans, however, a bitter taste is left in their mouth when they learned about how the U.S. taxpayer bankrolls billions of dollars in farm subsidies that mostly go to large item business interests.

I'm curious which candidate could label themselves fiscally responsible, will endorse the elimination of farm subsidies if they are elected president in 2008.

Cooper: Governor Romney, a lot of folks in Iowa interested in this answer.

(Laughter)

So I hear.

Romney: Not to mention Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and so forth. We don't want to find ourselves, with regards to our food supply, in the same kind of position we're in with regards to our energy supply. And so it's important for us to make sure that our farmers are able to stay on the farm and raise the crops that we need to have a secure source of food. And so I believe in supports that will allow us to do that.

And the same time, I recognize that we're also investing in new technologies to get ourselves energy independent. And I happen to believe that some of the best sources for having renewable energy come from the farm. And so we're investing with subsidies in those areas to create new technology that otherwise wouldn't be ready for the market yet. So I support these programs.

And finally, I'd say this. We have, in our nation, about one out of three acres that are planted are for sale overseas.

We send products around the world. We're competing with European and Brazilian and other farmers, and we're competing in a marketplace where they are heavily subsidized, at great disadvantage for our farmers. And so, if we're going to change our support structure, we want to make sure that they change their support structure.

And we do this together, as opposed to unilaterally saying: We're going to put our farmers in a tough position and have the farmers in the rest of the world continue to be subsidized.

So, open markets, let our goods go around the world and secure our source of food.

Secure our source of food? Because the fattest people on the planet are in danger of running out? What a joke.