AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL REACHES TOO DEEP
Washington, DC – The House of Representatives is
scheduled to vote on an appropriations bill today that is
riddled with unnecessary provisions. In some cases, Congress
has asked for millions of dollars above what the President has
requested for the coming fiscal year.The House Committee on
Appropriations has already passed the bill. Taxpayers for
Common Sense, an independent watchdog against government
waste, is calling for a reduction in spending, and in some
cases, the termination of projects in this bill.
Here
are some of the amendments to the Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related
Agencies Appropriations Bill, for FY2000 Taxpayers for Common
Sense supports:
DeFazio
(D-OR) –Bass (R-NH) -Morella (R-MD) Amendment: This
amendment seeks to reduce funding for Wildlife Services lethal
predator control program by about $7 million, taking the
appropriation back down to the Administration request of $28.7
million. About half of the funding for USDA’s Wildlife
Services predator control program is little more than a
taxpayer handout to the Western livestock industry.
Instead of improving their own techniques, ranchers rely on a
taxpayer-funded program to protect their livestock from
predators. This expensive subsidy to the western
livestock industry continues despite the fact that is has been
proven ineffective.
Chabot (R-OH) Amendments on the Market Access
Program: Two separate amendments on the Market
Access Program (MAP) will be offered by Rep. Chabot (R-OH),
seeking to scale back and eliminate the program. A
perennial target of fiscal conservatives, this program is too
often simply corporate welfare for big agribusinesses that do
not need taxpayer handouts. MAP is designed to encourage
the export of different agricultural products by funding
consumer related activities that promote these products, such
as trade shows, advertising campaigns, and other marketing
tactics. In theory, MAP has been reformed to benefit
only small businesses, farmer cooperatives and trade
associations. But corporate agribusiness often ends up
receiving benefits at taxpayer expense. Moreover, many
beneficiaries can afford their own advertising and promotion
without digging into taxpayer pockets.
The second
amendment would strike a provision from the bill that would
again allow the mink industry to receive benefits through
MAP. The FY99 Omnibus Appropriations bill effectively
eliminated the subsidy to the United States Mink Export
Development Council or any mink industry trade
association. However, this year’s Agriculture
Appropriations bill would allow this subsidy to return,
wasting millions in taxpayer dollars.
Miller (R-FL) Amendment: The USDA’s
sugar program subsidizes sugar producers and processors
through price supports, non-recourse loans, and severe
restrictions on imports. The 1996 Farm Bill also
guarantees sugar prices at 18 cents a pound, regardless of the
world market price. As a result, the program has helped
generate a huge surplus and can no longer guarantee these
unrealistically high prices. The solution the USDA has
proposed is to buyback hundreds of thousands of tons of sugar
in an effort to stabilize prices – all at taxpayer
expense. Recently, the USDA purchased 132,000 tons of
sugar at a cost to taxpayers of more than $54 million, and
more buybacks could cost taxpayers upwards of $100
million. Representative Miller’s (R-FL) amendment would
limit the amount of money used to purchase excess sugar cane
and sugar beets to the $54 million that the USDA has already
spent.
Sanford (R-SC) Amendment: This
amendment would eliminate $10 million in payments to wool and
mohair farmers authorized in the recently passed crop
insurance bill. The entire wool and mohair program was
originally phased out by Congress and the Administration
beginning in 1994, but was revived in the FY99 Omnibus
Appropriations bill. The payments proposed in the crop
insurance bill would simply make up for low market prices, and
would not be for natural disaster assistance. |
