POLITICAL COLUMN
Farm bill talks stumble, milk prices at risk
House and Senate farm bill leaders are to meet again Wednesday in what’s become a political rollercoaster that risks tossing Congress into a flood of overpriced milk come Jan. 1.
Just last week, the Agriculture Committees were predicting agreement soon on how to rewrite the commodity title and replace the current system of direct cash payments to producers. But Tuesday’s tone was much more skeptical, and House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) warned his party it had to be prepared “for how consumers will react at the grocery store when a gallon of milk doubles.”
Continue Reading“I was a very hopeful fellow a few days ago. I’m becoming pessimistic,” Lucas told POLITICO after a meeting of House committee chairs in the Capitol. “I’m trying to explain to everybody what the consequences are. I’m going to push to the last moment, but I would acknowledge to you that if we can’t make progress, something has to happen.”
Indeed, absent some agreement, dairy policy will revert next month to a 1949 law that prescribes a post-World War II vision of a more muscular government buying up dairy products directly to boost prices. The Agriculture Department would pay producers $38.54 per hundredweight compared to a market now running near $16.22. The result would be havoc — and many estimate a doubling in consumer prices for milk.
At this stage, few expect a farm bill can be written and enacted before Jan. 1, but the hope has been to reach enough of a consensus that the committees can be confident of producing a five-year plan as part of a budget deal between the White House and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Readers' Comments (8)
This Congress can't get anything done, can it? Worst Congress Ever.
But having crunched more numbers in the interim, Stabenow and Lucas each acknowledged the need for more work. And there remains a real regional and philosophical divide over what approach to take.
The Senate bill, adopted in late June, would do away with cash payments and instead offer new crop insurance options, including a shallow loss program popular with corn and soybean farmers in the Midwest.
So, just like this summer when this failed the problem is that the Democrat controllSenate wants a change to crop insurance over direct payments and the Repubs want to keep th direct subsidy welfare payments that are not dependent on a bad crop but are just yearly guarnateed.,,Summarize Dems want insurance and Repubs want a welfare payment.
Why don't they let free market capitalism operate in the farm community. Take away all the government funded pork. They aren't handing out any money for construction workers displaced when Bush sank the economy.
RepubliCon rural states protecting their subsidies is what this comes down to.
Payola and campaign contributions will solve the problem and the campaign donors will be happy again.
None of this is done for what is right or best for the country - it is all about payola and how pretty you look in a mirror.
The farm bill has created a mess in the market with their subsidies for corn and soy. It has changed the way we farm....huge monocrops, massive feedlots instead of animals integrated into the farm. The entire system has been corrupted, the land suffers, the quality and health of the food suffers.
Apparently the Republican party doesn't have as much business sense as they have a need for cash.
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