It's good to be back. I'd forgotten how 'violent' US news was; it sure was depressing.
Well, the GOP once again stands on it's political: free trade and concern for the family farmer...[NOT]...with a little extortion thrown in for good measure.
washingtonpost.com
GOP Rejects Move To Alter Farm Bill
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 12, 2002; Page A04
Democratic moves to change key parts of the recently enacted farm bill were rejected by Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee yesterday after intense lobbying by big farmers and commodity groups, but the session revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the high-priced measure.
In an unusually stark use of majority power, Republicans on the committee's agriculture panel threatened to strip Ohio-related projects from an annual spending bill if Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) offered an amendment that would have lowered the maximum amount the government can pay individual farmers from $360,000 to $275,000.
Kaptur, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations agriculture subcommittee, said it was "reprehensible that I'm faced with this choice" between her amendment and hurting her constituents. She said the $32 million in savings from the lower payment limits could have been shifted to food safety and a program that helps the poor and elderly shop at local farmers markets.
But to block her, Republicans readied an amendment that would have deleted "every single project that was hers alone" in a $74.3 billion measure funding agricultural programs in fiscal 2003, said a GOP Appropriations staffer. He said the list of 26 projects included grants for the Agriculture Research Service station at Wooster, Ohio, along with grants to universities and county extension offices.
The issue of payment limitations was hotly contested between the House and Senate during this spring's negotiations over the farm bill. The measure before the committee yesterday is the annual spending bill, separate from the seven-year authorizing legislation that President Bush signed in May.
Last spring, Senate Democrats, with a strong base among populist-inclined grain farmers in the upper Midwest, pushed through a $275,000 limit on government payments. But in the final version, the GOP-controlled House won higher limits and major loopholes for southern rice and cotton interests.....
Let's keep those farm subsidies going for large agro companies...three cheers! hip, hip, hurrah!
jttmab |
