11/20/07 What Happened?

What happened? I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. When it comes to the Farm Bill the old song "All I Want For Christmas" comes to mind! All ag producers want for Christmas is a good strong Farm Bill to take them into 2008 but it seems likely they may have to wait as the Senate seems to have a bad case of Farm Bill Interuptus! House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson thinks the hold up is that the President has threatened to veto the bill. PETERSON: Somehow or another he convinced the Republicans he was going to veto it and I think that causes them bigger political problems than not getting it done. So at the moment, the Senators have all gone home for the Thanskgiving holiday. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel said the same kind of political dancing took place during the debate on the 2002 Farm Bill and after the games stopped, they got back to work and got the bill done. But that could still be some time and some Senators are talking about an extension. Peterson's not in favor of that. PETERSON: I think it's a bad idea to even be talking about it because if we end up with any kind of extension I think we're going to lose momentum and once that happens we're probably going to be dead in the water until after the next Presidential election. Last week at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters, acting Ag Secretary Chuck Conner said the current bill making its way through is not a good one that includes $15- billion dollars of new taxes and before it passes it really needs a lot of work. CONNER: We are going to continue to push this. We want to get this bill done but it's got to be a good Farm Bill. It's got to be a Farm Bill that recognizes that there needs to be some changes in order to fund very, very important priorities for the future in order to sustain what is really incredible economic growth going on in agriculture today. These are great times for American agriculture. Conner says there needs to be some attention paid to who gets program payments. CONNER: Some of the wealthiest people in America today, those with adjusted gross incomes over $200-thousand dollars are the recipient of a lot of our farm program payments. This is wrong. It's wrong to be taking middle income taxpayer dollars and transferring that in the form of a farm income support payment to the people that are some of the wealthiest people that reside in America today. Will there be a new Farm Bill this year? It's anyone's guess but as Yogi Berra, the philosophic former catcher of the New York Yankees is quoted as saying; "It ain't over until it's over." That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.