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I know you all were waiting, with baited breath, for daily
TradeReform emails this past week. I took off for a fun-filled
Washington trip, battling the forces of darkness... the meat packer
lobby. In the farm bill debate.
The Senate Ag Committee approved their version of the farm
bill. The Senate version of the bill includes pro-competition
provisions in livestock. They are good. I know some complain
about the subsidies. I am agnostic on those. Blame Senator
Richard Lugar and Cargill who had the big idea for the 1996 Farm Bill,
and now Lugar says the subsidies are too much after he created
them. There was a price support program before, which was very
cheap. But Lugar wanted taxpayer subsidies so Cargill would not have to
pay so much for corn, and now Lugar has changed his mind.
Oh,
by the way, one year of farm subsidies would basically pay for a couple
months of the Iraq war. And they don't even touch the level of oil
company subsidies.
Back to livestock market competition
improvements in the Farm Bill. The Russell Senate Office Building
was a twisted, kaleidoscopic microcosm of advocacy. On October
24th and 25th the overflow room for the hearings was thick with packer
lobbyists. (Read more).
Former Congressman Charles Stenholm was one of
them. They worked hard to prevent the farm bill from taking away
the ill-gotten gains their patrons enjoy from distorting markets.
The National Pork Producers Council and National Cattlemen's Beef Assn
bill themselves as producer groups, but joined hands with the packer
lobbyists, furrowed their brows, and spoke with apoplectic concern
about provisions that would make livestock markets work better, and
fought clauses that give their producer members rights to enforce
market competition laws. Only the work of grassroots farm groups
and the calls of home-state farmers turned the lobbyists back.
Round One went for the good guys.
Manufacturers should nod their heads in understanding.
Domestic companies watch with confusion as the National Association of
Manufacturers protects China's right to manipulate currency, and
dismantle our industrial infrastructure. They widen their eyes as
NAM fights for more trade agreements that reduce U.S. tariffs while
allowing trading partners to impose double-digit, WTO-legal tariffs
called value added taxes on our exports. They shake their heads
as NAM argues that manufacturing is prospering in America, while
opposing the enforcement of trade laws.
Senate staffers are often caught up in this virtual
reality. A fish does not know it is wet, as they say.
During the farm bill debates, the staffers listen to the arguments of
both sides. The packer lobbyists on one side and the farmers on
the other. The staff dutifully take notes. They prepare
briefing papers for their bosses. The staffers have never sold a
hog or a steer to a packer. They have not been economically
waterboarded in a marketplace controlled by packer buyers.
Sometimes
the staffers see through the fog, and make clear decisions, good
decisions. But sometimes the staffers take the "middle road", the
road between the two sides. The "middle road" in DC is often
fiction, because one side's arguments are constructed entirely from
fiction. The "middle road" is thus divorced from the reality of
markets, separated from the experience of communities, and harmful to
entrepreneurial family farmers trying to sell their product for a price
that is set by supply and demand.
But the Senate Ag Committee approved some good provisions. It could be better. But it was good, so far.
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