Farm Bill Negotiations Continue

Occasionally, you stumble on a blog that does certain issues really well, and this looks like one of them. The Rural Blog points out that there are serious Farm Bill negotiations that are going to be taking place today. Essentially, there is disagreement between the House, Senate and the White House over how to reform or provide subsidies.

David Rogers learned the agriculture beat in Washington as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Now he writes for Politico, the political news outlet, but from time to time offers some of the best reporting on what's going on with the Farm Bill. He writes today that negotiators "are staring failure in the face, with a major deadline Friday, continued Democratic infighting and the commodity lobby’s stubborn resistance to altering an outdated subsidy system." Trade issues are also complicating the talks.

In his new role, Rogers is able to be more analytical and pointed, and he gigs the Bush administration: "Having raised the banner of reform, the White House appears to be playing the role of the spoiler, resisting even modest revenue-raisers accepted by House Republicans while refusing to come off the bench and pressure for some savings from direct payments to producers, now costing $5.2 billion a year even with today’s high crop prices."

The biggest stumbling blocks are the Senate's wish for an extra $4 billion in disaster aid, pushed by the National Farmers Union and other interests from the marginal, drought-sensitive row-crop region of the Dakotas and Montana, and $2.5 billion in tax breaks, including one for the horse industry. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) told Rogers, “The tax package will not be in this farm bill. It ain’t going to happen, and the sooner the Senate realizes that, the better.” Peterson dropped the disaster provision in a compromise offer last week, infuriating Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Rogers reports. But Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has deeper problems with his House counterpart, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel of New York, over Baucus' proposed revenue measures to pay for the disaster aid.

Peterson versus Baucus is really a Minnesota (corn and soybean agriculture) versus Montana (wheat and cattle agriculture) type dispute. I'm generalizing, of course, but there are competing interests at work. You have Southern California and Florida up against the interests of Iowa and Minnesota; you have tobacco growers against horse breeders.

A good place to sort all of this out is The Rural Blog, because I'm not the go-to guy on this stuff, to be honest with you.

Where did this story go?

Why didn’t this story get more traction? What the hell? In last Wednesday’s Washington Post, Dan Eggen had a blow-the-lid-off story on Alberto Gonzales lying to a Federal Judge about the legality of a US Attorney living outside the district served – in this case living in Washington D.C. and representing Montana – and then, later that very day, slipping a provision into…wait for it…you know it’s coming…drumroll please…The PATRIOT Act!!!

Eggen writes: ".... [T]he episode, which received little notice at the time, provides another example in which Gonzales's statements appear to conflict with simultaneous actions by his aides in connection with U.S. attorney policies.... The measure also provides the second example in which the Justice Department sought to use the renewal of the Patriot Act antiterrorism law to assert tighter control over U.S. attorneys. Another provision sought by the Justice Department allowed Gonzales to appoint U.S. attorneys indefinitely without Senate input. Since repealed, it was central to the uproar over the prosecutor dismissals."

The Attorney General of the United States lied to a Federal Judge. That is reprehensible. It’s despicable. It’s akin to treason to so undermine a coequal branch of government.

It is another deliberate abuse of the "Patriot Act." This slipping in of clauses looks as if it was becomign routine. Both clauses served to consolidate unprecedented, unchecked power in the hands of the Justice Department that Karl Rove might use it as a tool of the RNC.

We have long since passed the point where Mr. Gonzales has any hope of redeeming himself, and Justice can simply not be considered just so long as he retains his post.

Seriously – if he does not resign, and the President does not ask for his resignation, Congress needs to impeach him.

And the very next day, after he is dealt with and ousted from office, they need to start the process to repeal that apostasy known as the "Patriot Act" that hasn't made us safer, but has instead been a political tool used to abrogate the rule of law and allow a Republican partisan political operative, in the form of one Karl Rove to take control of the Department of Freakin' Justice.

Why the hell aren't we in the streets with pitchforks and torches over this?



[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]