JLF friend Frank Stephenson (chairman of the Economics Department at Berry College in Georgia) has this nicely barbed letter in today’s Wall Street Journal apropos of the administration’s new trade barriers that will raise the price of tomatoes for American consumers. Here’s the letter:

Regarding the new trade deal with Mexico that is expected to increase imported tomato prices by at least 40%: Perhaps the deal should be called the Ppata or Political Patronage and Affordable Tomato Act.

E.F. Stephenson

Rome, Ga.

This is politics at its ugliest. Obama grandstands about how he wants to raise wages for low-income workers (which won’t work) while he covertly raises the price of food, which is certain to work.