Saying "I Don't" & 2011 Tax Planning

Saying "I Don't" & 2011 Tax Planning plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Capital Hill will soon be a ghost town as Congress gets ready to leave town this week to campaign. Farmers and ranchers face new uncertainty over their taxes and with everyone out of town there will not be any resolution of major tax issues. According to American Farm Bureau Tax Specialist Pat Wolff - planning for 2011 taxes was never dicier. WOLFF: Up in the air is what state taxes will be, what capital gains tax rates will be, individual income tax rates will be and that makes planning for next year nearly impossible. Another fall out from the recession, marriage. New Census data shows that marriages fell to a record low level, with just 52 percent of adults 18 and over saying they were married, compared to 57 percent in 2000. Many young people struggling to find work and achieve economic independence decided it just wasn't the right time. That puts those 18 and over who decided to wed in 2009 at the lowest ebb since the government began tracking the data over 100 years ago. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Chocolate milk in schools, is it a childhood nutrient booster or an obesity villain like food activists across the nation are trying to label it? In the war on obesity the movement to remove all sweetened drinks from public schools has taken a turn to the ridiculous and absurd. Most parents were not opposed when schools made the decision to eliminate sodas from their cafeterias, but now food activists are pushing to have flavored milk banned from schools as well. They insist that kids will drink whatever beverage choices are left to them. Reality check, children are picky eaters. Small containers of flavored milk, the preferred drink choice of over seventy percent of school age children is not the main culprit in childhood obesity, and at least offers kids an enjoyable way to get needed nutrients. Of course we could go back to how lunch times were when I was a child, food Nazis' in every corner just looking for an opportunity to pull a few ears and deny after lunch recess till you ate everything on your plate. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.