Ben Carson isn’t pandering to voters in Iowa, telling them Sunday that he would phase out agricultural subsidies if elected president.
The Republican candidate, however, said that he would allow 10 years for the policy to take effect.
“Particularly when you’re talking about renewable fuel standards and things, there are a lot of promises that have been made that really extend all the way out to 2022, and people have made plans based on those kind of things,” Carson said Sunday. “You can’t just pull out the rug out from under people.”
The reform was just one of several Carson was asked about after an appearance at the “soapbox” at the Iowa State Fair sponsored by the Des Moines Register.
Carson, a famed neurosurgeon and new entrant to politics, suggested that the government could fund more research in clean fuels and alternative energy with the revenues that would come from loosening restrictions on exporting oil.
“We have enormous amounts of energy that we can utilize in appropriate ways,” he said, if not for “archaic” government rules.
With energy exports, he said, “we can make Europe dependent on us for energy, rather than Putin.”
Carson’s comments came shortly after his soapbox speech, delivered to a large crowd.
While his speech was mostly autobiographical and not political or policy-focused, Carson identified improving the country’s finances as a top agenda item. Loosening restrictions on oil exports is one of the ways he would address the government’s fiscal gap.
“We are in the process of destroying the future for the next generation,” Carson said of the federal government’s unfunded liabilities.
He claimed that “politicians” don’t want to talk about the country’s fiscal problems, but that he would.
“They want to get re-elected,” Carson said, “and I want to save the nation.”
