Ron Kind (D-Wis.)

Agriculture

Kind has been a vocal advocate of agriculture reform and an aggressive opponent of farm subsidies, an unlikely position for a moderate Democrat from a farming district. In July 2007, Kind co-sponsored an amendment to a multibillion-dollar farm bill with Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which would have eliminated farm subsidies for anyone earning $250,000 or more and increase funding for rural development and conservation. The move angered House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had crafted the bill to accommodate disparate interests within the party, especially those of moderate freshmen from rural districts. "He's a lone ranger on this, and he's dividing the caucus, and I don't appreciate it," Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said of Kind.

The Kind-Flake amendment ultimately failed 117 to 309, but that didn't stop Kind from continuing to press for reform. In February 2008, when the House and Senate Agriculture committees met to conduct conference negotiations on the farm bill, Kind and Flake continued to press for reduction of subsidies, and Kind argued that Obama should nominate an anti-subsidy reformer for secretary of Agriculture.

In keeping with his support for small-scale farmers, Kind founded and co-chairs the Congressional Organic Caucus. He has also worked to advance agricultural research and biofuels such as corn and switch grass. In 2007 he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "If we do this right, the upper Midwest could be the Silicon Valley of biofuels."

The Economy

Like many financially conservative Democrats, Kind supports "pay as you go" legislation, where increased spending is accompanied by tax increases or spending cuts, to reign in the national debt. So the Democrat was wary of the $787 billion price tag enacted by the February 2009 stimulus bill, and he called for spending that would be short-term or involve one-time projects like roads and bridges. In January 2009 Kind told a local newspaper, "Any stimulus we do has to be targeted, it has to be temporary and it has to end so we can get back to the longer term fiscal issues that we're facing."

In the end, Kind voted for Obama's stimulus package along with the rest of his Democratic colleagues in February 2009, but broke with the party and voted against the Omnibus Appropriations Act for 2009, which passed in March.

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