01/05/05 Ag preparing for attacks on spending

01/05/05 Ag preparing for attacks on spending

Farm and Ranch January 5, 2004 The 109th Congress kicked off this week and agricultural organizations have been gearing up for attacks on ag spending for when lawmakers get around to the budget reconciliation process later in the year. Mary Kay Thatcher , Director of Public Policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, says agricultural groups are looking to team up with others interested in preserving farm and food related spending from the budget axe. Thatcher: "We've already had a meeting with all the commodity groups and we are planning another one. We try to say as a whole how can we all stick together here and how can the farm groups join with the conservation groups and the nutrition groups, because those folks too do not want the Farm Bill opened. So we are going to do our best to say don't cut it, but if it happens then we will move on and do our best and say if we have to take cuts let's make sure ours are not disproportionate to everybody else's." Thatcher says it's clear Congress will have difficult funding choices to make in an era of record large deficits. Even that 350-million dollar commitment to help tidal wave victims in Asia adds to the red ink. Thatcher: "We talk about making permanent some of the tax benefits that are very beneficial to farmers. Things like permanent death tax repeal. Leaving the capital gains tax rates as low as we got them set in 2003. All things beneficial, but on the other hand will cause us to probably have to have a greater cut in the budget through budget reconciliation." Congress isn 't expected to get down to serious legislative business until after the President's second inauguration January 20th. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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