He blames Washington's tariffs. Then he asks Washington for fifteen billion dollars.

Wall of Shame — Today: Balch & Bingham

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Balch & Bingham PAC (Birmingham) has put $2,500 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. A major Alabama law and lobbying firm — the same access play. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS

On Wednesday, Shomari Figures introduced a bill to spend fifteen billion dollars of federal money. That is the plan. That is what he brought back to the Second District this summer, and it is what he intends to run on.

The Tariff Impacted Farmer Support Act of 2026 would pull up to fifteen billion dollars out of the Commodity Credit Corporation and send it out as direct federal payments to soybean, cotton, corn, peanut and poultry producers. His office says the idea came out of a meeting with farmers in Macon County. A congressman sat down with farmers who told him their costs were up and their margins were gone, and what he came back with was an appropriation.

A COST WASHINGTON MADE, ANSWERED WITH A CHECK FROM WASHINGTON

Read the mechanism, because the mechanism is the whole argument.

A tariff is Washington setting a price. It is a tax collected at the dock, and it lands on the man buying fertilizer and a combine. Figures says so himself - he blames the cost squeeze on tariffs, by name, in his own press release.

So he knows exactly what the cost is and exactly where it came from. And his bill does not remove one dollar of it. It leaves the tax standing and sends fifteen billion dollars of borrowed federal money out behind it to cover part of the damage. Two Washington interventions stacked on top of each other, and a farmer in Coffee or Barbour or Macon County who now depends on both of them - on the tax staying where it is, and on Congress renewing his payment.

That is not relief. That is a farmer put on a federal program and a congressman with something to campaign on.

IN MARCH, HE VOTED DOWN THE FARM BILL

Here is the part that shows you the whole shape of it.

On March 5, Figures voted against H.R. 7567, the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026 - the actual, standing vehicle for American farm policy, the one whose extension runs out on September 30. He voted no. And in his own statement explaining that vote, his objection was that the bill "does not go far enough."

Not that it spent too much. That it did not spend enough.

So: vote down the farm bill for being too small in March. Introduce a fifteen-billion-dollar payment program in July, with an election coming. There is one idea running through both, and it is the only idea in the file - that whatever is wrong in the Second District, the answer is another program administered out of Washington, and the measure of a congressman is how large a number he can carry home.

AND DO NOT GET COMFORTABLE

One more thing, and it is a warning, not a comfort.

The map is better. It is not a result. This seat is being contested by people with real money and real intent - a national party committee that has publicly called it critical to taking back the House, an incumbent whose war chest doubled last quarter on that committee's money, and outside forecasters who have this race rated anywhere from lean Republican to an outright toss-up. Figures himself, speaking Sunday, looked at the new district and said, "I like my chances."

He means it. Anyone in this district who assumes the lines do the work is handing him the seat.

THE BOTTOM LINE

He blames Washington's tariffs for the squeeze, and then asks Washington for fifteen billion dollars. He voted down the farm bill for being too small. He has a national committee funding him and he likes his chances.

Six Republicans are on the August 11 ballot. Which one carries this district is for the voters of the Second District to decide - not a committee in Washington, and not this newsletter. Our fight is with the incumbent and the money behind him.

August 11. Then November 3.