Cheap subsidies today?

Now don't get me wrong; I can't stand it when government decides to pick our pockets to give it to someone. However, it actually turns out that subsidies today have a small cost in comparison to those of the 19th Century, where Whigs and Republicans (and sometimes the then-conservative meaning classical liberal Democrats) used tax revenues (specifically tariffs) to fund canals, railroads, and westward expansion while simultaneously using those tariffs to protect heavy industry in New England.

The costs? Well, secession and the "War Between the States" was in part a reaction to those tariffs, and the "Indian Wars" were brought on in great part by the settlement of the Plains. That settlement, in turn, was encouraged by federally funded railroads, federal farm giveaways, and a flood of people who lost their life's savings in the post-Civil War bank crashes. Two famous examples are the Wilder and Ingalls families of the "Little House on the Prairie" series.

So if you think that hundreds of billions of dollars annually is a high cost to pay, think about hundreds of thousands of people instead.

Oh, and those agricultural subsidies I mentioned a few days back? Yup, one of the reasons we "need" them today is that the 19th century subsidies made the Great Plains into a vast granary.