1/14/09 Estate Tax, Salmonella & Trade Nominee

Estate Tax & Trade Nominee plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. It won't happen right away, but indications are that President-elect Barack Obama, with the support of congressional leaders, will move to block the estate tax from disappearing in 2010. The Democratic stance on the estate tax contrasts with Mr. Obama's reluctance to press forward with his campaign pledge to raise income-tax rates on top earners. Something he may not want to do in the middle of a recession. Congressional tax writers expect Mr. Obama to present his estate-tax preservation proposal in his budget next month. Of course there is a lot of attention on the new Obama administration as various confirmation hearings are taking place. The American Farm Bureau Federation is holding their annual meeting this week in San Antonio and AFBF President Bob Stallman talked about U.S. Trade Representative Nominee, Ron Kirk. STALLMAN: Being a very intelligent individual, I think he'll be a quick study and hit the ground running. The bigger question I think will be what will ultimately the trade policy be of the Obama administration and we have to wait and see on that. Peanut butter has been suspect in an outbreak of salmonella across the U.S. and it has now been confirmed. Late Saturday, King Nut Cos., of Solon, Ohio, announced it had issued a recall of King Nut peanut butter and Parnell's Pride peanut butter with the lot code "8." King Nut distributes peanut butter through food service accounts and does not sell it directly to consumers. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. The late, great Paul Newman once stated, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" Of course Paul was speaking about fidelity to his lovely wife of many years. The American public who has been suffering through an economic downturn is today stating, "Why go out for steak when you can more afford hamburger!" For restaurants, that means middle and upper income families are eating out a lot less. This means the beef industry who supplies a large amount of beef to such restaurants has been hit hard. Chicken and pork producers have also seen a decrease in the last several months, but not nearly as drastic a hit as the beef producers. The exception to this downturn in beef sales however is that the call for end meats generally used for ground beef has raised due to the fast food burger places doing really well now. Rather an - oh, that's bad, oh that's good situation for the beef industry. Interestingly, even with the economic downturn, the population still wants their beef; they're just buying it in the form of hamburger rather than steak. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.