Copyright 2002 The Columbus Dispatch Columbus
Dispatch (Ohio)
July 14, 2002 Sunday, Home Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; D.C. DISPATCHES; Pg. 07A
LENGTH: 682 words
HEADLINE: GOP
PLOWS UNDER KAPTUR'S SUBSIDY CUT
BYLINE:
Compiled Jonathan Riskind., THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
BODY: Rep. Marcy Kaptur was stymied last week when
she tried to limit annual federal subsidies to individual farmers to $275,000,
instead of the $360,000 enacted recently in the farm bill.
The Toledo Democrat was pushing the subsidy limit as an
amendment to the 2003 agriculture spending bill being prepared in a House
Appropriations Committee.
Kaptur, the top Democrat on
the committee's agriculture subcommittee, said she decided not to offer the
amendment after Republicans threatened to kill a number of Ohio-related spending
requests.
For instance, funding for a number of
research projects at Ohio State University would have been eliminated, including
$783,000 for wheat-quality research on OSU's Wooster campus, said Roger Szemraj,
Kaptur's chief of staff.
Another endangered funding
request was Kaptur's bid to increase money to help food banks run a federal
emergency food program. She proposed a boost from $50 million to $60 million.
"I may be blockheaded sometimes, but I'm not stupid," she
said during the committee hearing Thursday.
Republicans
said deliberations over the annual agriculture spending bill were not the right
forum in which to rewrite the farm bill passed by Congress
earlier this year.
Kaptur said the millions of dollars
in savings from lowering the subsidies could have been used for food-safety
programs and a program subsidizing purchases by the poor and elderly at local
farmers' markets.
Hobson, Tiberi to visit Cuban camp
Republican Reps. David L. Hobson of Springfield and Pat
Tiberi of Columbus were scheduled to take a little day trip today -- to
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
The lawmakers want
to check out conditions for U.S. troops at the facility, which has become
well-known for housing suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees.
Among the U.S. forces helping oversee operations at the Camp X-Ray
detention center are members of the 342nd Military Police company from Columbus,
part of the 88th Army Reserve Support Command.
"Now
that Camp X-Ray has been operating for several months, we will be able to see
firsthand how the men and women in uniform from our area are getting along,"
Hobson and Tiberi said in a statement. "We also want to inspect the conditions
in which our soldiers and sailors are living and working."
Get busy, Boehner bluntly tells Senate
Never
let it be said that Rep. John A. Boehner doesn't feel passionately about the
issues on Capitol Hill.
The West Chester lawmaker
joined fellow Republican Reps. Michael G. Oxley of Findlay and Rob Portman of
Cincinnati last week at a press conference to push for Senate passage of the
House GOP corporate responsibility and pension-security bills. Oxley, chairman
of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote the corporate responsibility
bill and Portman wrote the pension-security legislation.
But it was Boehner, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce
Committee, who really got worked up, calling on the Democrat-controlled Senate
to pass its own versions of the bills so the two sides could try to reach a
compromise.
"They can make all the damn criticism they
want," Boehner said. "Why don't they pass something?"
Boehner was a bit abashed afterward about his strong language.
jriskind@dispatch.com
Box
Story:How Ohioans voted Here is how the members of the Ohio
congressional delegation voted last week on key roll-call votes: House of Representatives HOUSE BILL 4635 *
Allowing airline pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit. The Senate has yet to
consider the bill. Passed: 310-113 Democrats -- Yes:
Brown, Hall, Strickland No: Kaptur, Kucinich, Sawyer, Tubbs Jones; Did not vote:
Traficant Republicans -- Yes: Boehner, Chabot, Gillmor, Hobson,
LaTourette, Ney, Oxley, Pryce, Portman, Regula, Tiberi Senate SENATE RESOLUTION 34 * Clearing the way for congressional
approval of Yucca Mountain, Nev., for the disposal of high-level radioactive
waste and spent nuclear fuel. The House already had approved the resolution. Passed: 60-39 Yes: DeWine (R), Voinovich (R) Source: Congress
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