FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2007

Farm Bill is No Place for Tax Increases
Goodlatte opposes tax increases slipped into farm bill language

WASHINGTON – Late Thursday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives began consideration of H.R. 2419, the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2007. Earlier in the week, Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte voiced support for the bipartisan farm bill product passed by the Agriculture Committee barring any of the rumored tax increases were not tacked onto the bill. A day before the farm bill was to be taken up by the House; Agriculture Committee Republicans learned that a tax increase on companies with U.S. subsidiaries had been inserted into the bill without their knowledge.

Ranking Member Goodlatte made the following statement on the House floor during general debate on the farm bill on Thursday evening:

“Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day for American agriculture when the Democratic Leadership pits America’s farmers and ranchers against America’s working class. The tax increases included in this bill stand to jeopardize millions of American jobs by raising taxes on companies that do business in the U.S. Not only does this provision, cunningly added by the Democrat Leadership after the bill left the control of the Agriculture Committee, jeopardize American jobs, it stands to abrogate treaties with other nations and lead to significant ramifications for U.S. companies with operations in other countries. Worst of all, we’re not even considering a tax bill: we’re considering a farm bill, a farm bill that has been twisted into a partisan pawn.

“At the beginning of the week, I stood beside the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee to voice my support for this bill that we had worked in a bipartisan fashion to bring to the floor. I had only one caveat: that the offsets not be in the form of tax increases. Not 24 hours before we were to consider this bill on the Floor, we were made aware of a tax increase provision that had been added to this language behind closed doors. Unfortunately all of the good things contained in this bill have been overshadowed by very partisan elements of what should be a bipartisan bill.

“Today, we should be debating the merits of this bill, a bill that was carefully crafted to meet the calls for reform and expand programs such as nutrition and fruits and vegetable programs. But the Leadership has decided to take American agriculture out of the debate on the farm bill.

“Heading into the reauthorization of the farm bill, Agriculture Committee Republicans anticipated problems with the budget given the collapse of the baseline projections for the commodity programs. The lack of funding for the nutrition interests further compounded the problem. As the number of non-farm interests in farm bill funding has grown and the availability of funding dwindled, farm programs have become particularly vulnerable and the Democratic Leadership and the Budget Committee refused address the needs of a forward looking farm bill.

“From the start, the Agriculture Committee Republicans have made our concerns about funding for this bill very clear. When the Chairman announced his projected farm bill timeline on May 17, I urged him not to rush the process and find the offsets before promising the money in the farm bill language.

“Again and again, I, along with my Subcommittee Ranking Members, have implored the Committee to slow down, to wait until the money is available before moving ahead. At the Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Rural Development Subcommittee markup on May 22, both Subcommittee Ranking Member Frank Lucas and I urged caution in rushing the process. On May 24, at the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry markup the message was the same. In the subsequent markups on June 6, 7, 15, and 19, the message to the Leadership of this Committee was the same: slow down and find the money. We were consistently told the money would be made available and we were consistently denied any further information.

“It would be disingenuous for my Agriculture Committee Democrat colleagues to claim our objections are at all new or recently conceived. We have worked in a bipartisan fashion throughout this process and had the opportunity to take a bipartisan product of the Committee to the floor, but our work has been undermined by the addition of tax increases, without consultation, review or due process, to cover the extra costs of the bill. Despite repeated assurances that the $4 billion in offsets would not come from tax increases, here we are looking at tax increases as the “funding mechanism” of choice employed by the Democrat Leadership. Moreover, to insinuate that Democrats were “made” to do anything by the Republican’s opposition to provisions that would directly impact U.S. jobs is preposterous. The Democrats, and the Democrats alone, are solely responsible for any modifications made to this bill after it left the Agriculture Committee.

“Because the Democrat Leadership won’t invest in American agriculture, they’re calling on foreign companies to pick up the tab to fund our domestic priorities by increasing taxes on companies that provide millions of Americans with good jobs and stimulate economic growth. I anticipate this tax increase will likely be the first of many needed to fund the priorities that bulge beyond the Majority’s budget.

“Rural America is served best when we work together in a bipartisan fashion. With passage of this rule, partisanship invades rural America and destroys bipartisan support for the underlying legislation. I want to be clear: I support the farm bill. I do NOT support the non-agriculture, non-Agriculture Committee approved tax increase that has been shamefully attached to this legislation.”

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