Tax Woes on Capital Hill & Ag Gag Bill

Tax Woes on Capital Hill & Ag Gag Bill plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

House and Senate tax leaders are pursuing conflicting tracks on tax breaks and reform - making it less likely major tax legislation will get done before the election. Farm Bureau tax adviser Pat Wolff says both chambers know that they need to deal with expired tax breaks - including small business expensing for equipment - key for agriculture. But Wolff says the problem is the two bodies are on different tracks - starting with new Senate Finance Chair, Oregon's Ron Wyden.

WOLFF: The finance committee as said we're going to move to tax extenders next and we're hoping that will happen sometime soon, in the next month or so. The House on the other side under the leadership of Dave Camp, Chairman of the Ways and Means committee says, woah. We're going to talk about tax reform first and then talk about extenders.

Idaho's Senate Bill 1337 seems likely to pass but not without some protest. The bill is being called the "Ag-gag" bill and looks to ban the undercover shooting of video inside farming facilities. Sen. Jim Patrick from Twin Falls says the bill was designed to protect Idaho farmers against several things including trespassing, theft, wrongful employment. A vote in the House should come this week.

Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray.

Let's hope that the milk industry's new ad campaign is better received than Geico's change to talking pictures. The fact that they make a person miss a talking gecko says it all. The new milk ads that rolled out this week have dumped the "got milk?", one of the most well known and quoted, and yes, purposefully mis-quoted tag lines over the last two decades. The new ads now feature the tagline "Milk Life", and show regular people instead of celebrities enjoying the energy boost they get from drinking protein rich milk. Milk industry representatives say that the $50 million dollar marketing effort was prompted by sluggish sales. Funny thing, one of the most persuasive things for me has always been to see ice cold milk being poured from a bottle into a glass, and yes milk used to come in bottles. Our family used to watch the Nero Wolfe Mystery television series with Timothy Hutton, and every time Timothy's character "Archie" poured himself a tall glass of milk you'd find all of us racing to the refrigerator to get ourself some milk. So, the simpler, the better, but I hope the new ads work out well for them.

Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.