Agricultural News
Congress Will Act on New Farm Bill When it is Forced To, Mary Kay Thatcher Says
Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:47:10 CST
With the 113th Congress in the history books and the opening of the 114th looming on the horizon, Mary Kay Thatcher, Senior Director of Congressional Relations with the American Farm Bureau Federation, spoke with RON Farm Director Ron Hays about the fate of the 2012 Farm Bill and the prospects for the new year. She said she was disappointed the bill never made it to the House floor, but was not surprised with the extension.
"I wasn't surprised that we got an extension because going to the permanent law was just such a crazy thing. And you know once the urban people started understanding $7-a-gallon milk that certainly pushed it over the top. So, I wasn't surprised we got an extension."
However, she said, "I was surprised about a few things. I would have really almost bet anything that any extension would have included livestock disaster assistance given the huge drought we had. So, obviously, there's still some things we have to clean up about it, but it does at least give us another nine months to work on it. I'm not one of these people that thinks we're going to do it anytime soon in 2013 either. So, I suspect we'll be at it most of the year."
There had been a lot of talk before the extension was passed that direct payments would not be a part of any new future legislation. Thatcher said she doesn't see how that could happen with so many producers already on the hook or finalizing plans which rely on those payments.
"It is almost impossible. Yes, the direct payments don't come until October in the next fiscal year, but they're for this 2013 crop. So, thinking that you're going to have a farm bill that takes those away is just crazy. Again, you would have to really do a farm bill early in the year because you've got people that are obviously way along in the planning period. You've already got winter wheat planted. You've got other crops that are going to be planted in not very long. So, I think that would really be pulling the rug out from farmers and is not a likely scenario at all."
She said she doesn't know what the new farm bill will contain until there is a budget number released. Scoring by the CBO will not be available until March. But there will be a January forecast which gives a pretty accurate picture of what the budget picture will be in the future. She said that the amount of funding available will determine what's ultimately in the bill.
Thatcher also said that had the 2012 Farm Bill made it to the floor of the House, it probably would have been heavily amended by urban lawmakers. She said agriculture committee members may take those possible amendments into consideration when writing the new farm bill.
She said the 2012 Farm Bill never made it to the floor mainly due to politics.
"In general you had Tea Party Republican-type members who wanted to take much bigger cuts in food stamps. In general you had liberal Democrats who thought you could take zero cuts in food stamps. It was just hard to work it out."
Thatcher said she believes House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have to sort out the numbers and come to some agreement on possible cuts before any new farm bill has a chance at passage.
Another reason why the 2012 bill never made it to the floor, Thatcher said, was because none of the farm organizations were very successful in getting their membership to pressure their individual representatives to agitate House leadership sufficiently for a vote.
"I think it's fairly common knowledge that no farm group had very much luck with their members saying, 'You've got to go pound on your member of Congress to go pound on John Boehner.' It just didn't happen. We tried massive campaigns in the August recess. We tried massive campaigns in October when those folks were home campaigning and it just didn't happen. Whether it was that folks were focused on estate tax reform, whether it was people looking at the drought throughout the year, or a whole host of things, we just didn't have enough grassroots input. You can look at that as a very good indication of why grassroots input is important."
Thatcher said she doesn't see much action possible on a new farm bill until mid-March at the earliest and that she wouldn't be at all surprised to find Congress still working on the bill right up until the September deadline. She said that Congress only moves when it is forced to move. When the current extension runs out in September and news networks begin to air stories about dairy prices poised to skyrocket when that program ends in December, Thatcher said, then Congress will act.
"I hope this time we can really get it together. I think we will. I have much more confidence we will get a farm bill in 2013 than I ever did in 2012, but I also think it's going to be more painful. There will probably be less money to be able to spend and, certainly, we have fewer middle-of-the-road Congressmen. We have more Republican right and more liberal left, and fewer Republicans and Democrats in the middle. And we have fewer representatives representing rural areas, so it's going to be difficult."
Thatcher said one of the positive developments to come out of Congress last year was the estate tax bill. She said nothing is permanent and can be changed by a future Congress, but, at least for now, the $5-million-dollar exemption and inflation indexing should be safe.
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear Ron Hays's full interview with Mary Kay Thatcher.
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