The debt limit, the budget and ag spending

Farm and Ranch May 16, 2011 White House/GOP debt limit talks began last week and American Farm Bureau Federation’s Mark Maslyn expects that will lead to more cuts in farm programs. He says the White House talks and others on Capitol Hill have not yet merged into a single deal, but when they do:

Maslyn: “Certainly from the standpoint of farm policy you are looking at reductions in what we will have to work with to write the next farm bill in terms of the budget allocation for that. Of course what we have said is we don‘t feel, first of all you can‘t balance the budget on the back of farm policy. Nowhere near that kind of money. The entire farm commodity programs are less than a half of one percent of the budget.”

Maslyn says Republicans and Democrats already seem to agree on making farm subsidy cuts and he cautions:

Maslyn: “At some point you lose the critical mass of support or funding to continue to do what we have been doing, which is why we have been challenging our leaders to think fresh and think broadly, and if you have a dollar to spend for agricultural policy what should the federal role be in providing a safety net to farmers?”

Maslyn would not speculate on the possibility of a backlash from farm bill writers if the budget pie gets too small. He just says the next farm bill won’t like it has been in the past.

Maslyn: “In the case of agriculture I think there is a widespread recognition that we are going to have to do our share.”

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.