When Did Billy Long Change his mind on farm subsidies?

In today's News-Leader editorial: Farm Bill leaves food states hanging while candidates campaign.  "On a recent visit with the News-Leader Editorial Board, U.S. Rep. Billy Long expressed his frustration with the House’s failure to pass a farm bill."

The current farm law, which extends subsidy payments to farmers and pays for food stamps, is scheduled to expire Sept. 30, with no new law in place for the first time in recent memory.

The editorial notes Billy Long expressed his frustration with the House’s failure to pass a farm bill: "To be fair, our local representatives have spoken out in support of getting a farm bill. Long, R-Springfield, noted what every farmer knows — farmers need a five-year bill to “provide certainty to the agriculture community.”

When did Billy change his mind on farm subsidies?

 During his 2010 campaign Long stated (pretty emphatically I might add) that "I will support the elimination or reduction of obsolete agricultural subsidies." Long then took the time time add to that statement, in his own handwriting: "Our food supply is important and should be able to operate in a free market without the distortions of government's politically motivated subsidies."

From the bus garage, October 10, 2010: Billy Long farm tour-- will he tell the farmers he wants to end farm subsidies?".

 An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy paid to farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of such commodities. Examples of such commodities include wheat, feed grains (grain used as fodder, such as maize or corn, sorghum, barley, and oats), cotton, milk, rice, peanuts, sugar, tobacco, and oilseeds such as soybeans.

In 2010 Billy was against farm subsidies.

In 2012, Billy is for farm subsidies.

When did Billy change his mind? More importantly, WHY did Billy change his mind? When did Billy "flip/flop"?

We don't know, we'll probably never know as long as Long refuses to hold town hall meetings with is constituents or debate his opponent.

 I'll bet the John Deere dealer is glad Billy changed his mind on subsidies.

And then there's that little matter of Billy's "YEA" vote on H.R. 579 --a $1.047 trillion bill funding the federal government through March 2013 that will permit funding for Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare--including the regulation that took effect on Aug. 1 that will require virtually all health plans in the United States to cover, without fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

Billy repeated has said he was against everything in this bill.... so why did he vote "YEA"?

These are the kind of questions Billy needs to answer.

And these questions are the real reason Billy won't debate or appear in live un-scripted town hall meetings with his constituents.

These are the kind of questions we would hope that those who DO get a chance to talk to Billy unscripted would ask.

Step up to the plate News-Leader.

If you don't have any reporters with a historical knowledge of Long's campaign --- I'm sure you can find someone in MO7 who does and who would be glad to suggest areas of discussion.