| 10/16/2003 Vote Unlikely on Cutting US Farm Subsidies Says Senator - 10/14 Reuters Congressional leaders apparently will merge a half-dozen spending bills, including the annual agriculture funding legislation, into a catch-all bill, said Iowa Republican Charles Grassley. That would prevent votes on specific issues like Grassley's goal of a "hard" cap on payments to farmers. A catch-all spending bill also could obscure the outcome of House-passed proposal to block implementation of a law requiring country-of-origin labels on beef, pork and mutton beginning September 2004. Senators want the law to take effect as scheduled. Melding agriculture funding into an omnibus bill "is a possibility," said Utah Republican Robert Bennett, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Agriculture Department and related agencies. "I think it's a bit presumptuous to say we have a plan." Grassley, in a telephone news conference, said "it looks like the ag appropriations bill is not going to come to the floor at all." Instead, an omnibus bill would be written by House and Senate negotiators. Grassley decried "procedural maneuvering" that would deny him a vote on the issue. "We probably won't get a vote this time" to limit the amount of money growers collect from the government, he said. The limit of $360,000 a year can be circumvented easily by large growers, who get 71 percent of the payments. Senators voted overwhelmingly last year for a lower limit but fell into a deadlock with the House (of Representatives), which wanted to raise the limit. The result was the $360,000 limit and appointment of a commission to study the impact of payment limits. Grassley hoped to get a vote on his proposal for a "hard" limit in the range of $275,000-$300,000 a year and to block cotton, grains and soybean growers from using techniques, such as forfeiting loans, to evade the limit. Subsidies now are based on a farm's output -- the more it grows, the more money it receives. Farm activists say big payments give large operators the cash to out-bid their smaller neighbors for land and equipment. The dispute pits the Plains and the Midwest against the South, whose cotton and rice have the highest payment rates; grain and soybean growers against cotton and rice farmers; and small farmers against the big. Four of the aspirants for the Democratic nomination for president -- former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, and Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina -- support tighter limits on payments to large farmers. Related Link: http://www.reuters.com |
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