01/29/08 Connor makes USDA's pitch for tighter payment limits

Farm and Ranch January 29, 2008 USDA's Chuck Connor was working the phones last week doing interviews with farm broadcasters and making the pitch for tighter payment limits than contained in either the House or Senate versions of the farm bill. During a recent meeting with Connor, National Association of Wheat Growers First Vice President David Cleavinger, said that elimination of the three-entity rule and direct attribution constitutes major reform. Connor doesn't think so and stands by USDA's proposal to lower the Adjusted Gross Income cap from 2.5 million dollars to 200-thousand. Connor: "Why in the world Bob would we be paying direct income subsidies to people who are among the wealthiest two percent of all Americans. Two percent! It makes absolutely no sense at all. These are people that by any measure are some of the most well to do people ever and we are taking tax dollars from ordinary people in order to supplement their income even more." As to the argument that southern lawmakers will never accept USDA's proposal, Connor says places like New York, New Jersey and Washington D.C. are much more heavily affected than the south. Connor: "You know for the most Bob these are people that are the most ultimate in absentee landowners. They are people who happen to own farm land. That land happens to have a base on it. They collect off of that base. In some cases they haven't even seen the land they are collecting money from." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.