After our class
discussion about how regulations help the industries being regulated, I decided
to do some digging. In Charles Wheelan’s Naked
Economics, I came across an extremely small but persistent group that has succeeded
(more than once I might add) at receiving subsidies from the government. This
relatively small, crafty group is the mohair farmers.
Mohair comes
from the Angora goat and is a substitute for wool. After WWII, the government
created a subsidy to mohair farmers in order to ensure there would be a
sufficient supply of yarn for military uniforms in case of future war. However,
5 years after the subsidy was granted the military switched to synthetic fiber,
rendering the mohair subsidy unnecessary. This
subsidy flew under the radar for 35 years. Eventually, it was found out and
became the poster-child for pork barrel politics. The subsidy was promptly
eliminated.
However, the
mohair farmers weren’t done yet. Once the attention of the United States moved
on from the mohair farmers, just a few years after the original subsidy was
ended, they managed to get the subsidy reinstated. They are still subsidized to
this day.
Perhaps, the
mohair farmers managed this through cunning and persuasion. However, it seems
that our class has taught us they might not need to. The mohair subsidy costs
each taxpayer mere pennies (which Professor Coppock argues are a nuisance to
carry anyway), and the mohair farmer group is so small that they receive a
decent benefit. Getting rid of the subsidy would not make much sense
politically. The politician who declared war against the mohair farmers would
most likely lose the vote of the mohair farmers, while most taxpayers would not
even notice what had been done for them and would most likely not change their
political position based off of this. Once the subsidy was put in place, it
seems that getting rid of it might be more trouble than it’s worth.
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