Ag spending targeted in GOP budget
Ag spending targeted in GOP budget
9:53 AM, Apr 5, 2011 | by Philip Brasher |
A House Republican budget plan unveiled today would slash spending on farm programs by $30 billion over the next decade by reducing direct payments to farmers and landowners and cutting back on crop insurance. Republicans say the cuts are justified at a time when farm income is booming.
No state has more at stake than Iowa in those proposals. Iowa receives the biggest share of direct farm payments, about 10 percent of the $5 billion distributed each year, and also is the most lucrative state in the nation for the federally subsidized crop insurance business.
“The record-breaking prosperity of American farmers and farm communities is to be celebrated. But it also calls for re-examination of federal agricultural programs that spend billions each year, to ensure that taxpayers aren’t funding support for a sector that is more than capable of thriving on its own,” according to the budget plan.
The cuts are part of a plan to cut government spending by $6 trillion over the next decade.
The amount that the plan would take from farm spending is more important than the specific proposals, because the details of the cuts would be determined in the next farm bill. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, is a strong defender of direct payments. In a statement, he applauded the overall plan but made a point of saying that his committee would decide how any cuts in agriculture spending are made.
The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, said the proposed reductions to farm spending showed that the House GOP was willing to make difficult cuts. “We’ve got people in Congress who are not only ready and willing to do that but are doing that,” Ryan said. He said that a Indiana member of his committee who is a farmer, Marlin Stutzman, had taken the lead in designing the cuts to farm spending.
The National Corn Growers Association had this reaction: “These cuts are significant, but so is our nation’s out-of-control budget deficit. What is important is that farmers are not singled out — the cuts proposed for agriculture are proportional to those proposed for other areas of the federal budget. We know this is just the beginning of the budget discussion. No matter the outcome, we are committed to working with the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to fashion a farm bill that provides farmers with risk management tools that are there when they truly need them,” said NCGA President Bart Schott.
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/04/05/ag-spending-targeted-in-gop-budget/
All of the farm belt states who truly believed the GOP would not target them!!!
Ag spending targeted in GOP budget
9:53 AM, Apr 5, 2011 | by Philip Brasher |
A House Republican budget plan unveiled today would slash spending on farm programs by $30 billion over the next decade by reducing direct payments to farmers and landowners and cutting back on crop insurance. Republicans say the cuts are justified at a time when farm income is booming.
No state has more at stake than Iowa in those proposals. Iowa receives the biggest share of direct farm payments, about 10 percent of the $5 billion distributed each year, and also is the most lucrative state in the nation for the federally subsidized crop insurance business.
“The record-breaking prosperity of American farmers and farm communities is to be celebrated. But it also calls for re-examination of federal agricultural programs that spend billions each year, to ensure that taxpayers aren’t funding support for a sector that is more than capable of thriving on its own,” according to the budget plan.
The cuts are part of a plan to cut government spending by $6 trillion over the next decade.
The amount that the plan would take from farm spending is more important than the specific proposals, because the details of the cuts would be determined in the next farm bill. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, is a strong defender of direct payments. In a statement, he applauded the overall plan but made a point of saying that his committee would decide how any cuts in agriculture spending are made.
The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, said the proposed reductions to farm spending showed that the House GOP was willing to make difficult cuts. “We’ve got people in Congress who are not only ready and willing to do that but are doing that,” Ryan said. He said that a Indiana member of his committee who is a farmer, Marlin Stutzman, had taken the lead in designing the cuts to farm spending.
The National Corn Growers Association had this reaction: “These cuts are significant, but so is our nation’s out-of-control budget deficit. What is important is that farmers are not singled out — the cuts proposed for agriculture are proportional to those proposed for other areas of the federal budget. We know this is just the beginning of the budget discussion. No matter the outcome, we are committed to working with the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to fashion a farm bill that provides farmers with risk management tools that are there when they truly need them,” said NCGA President Bart Schott.
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/04/05/ag-spending-targeted-in-gop-budget/
All of the farm belt states who truly believed the GOP would not target them!!!
