Farm Bills aren’t sexy. I don’t pretend to understand agricultural issues. All I know is that the Farm Bill has a lot of bipartisan support and the president is threatening to veto it. Mike Johanns recently left the Department of Agriculture to run for Chuck Hagel’s senate seat, so the rationale for the veto fell to his former deputy. And I think Mr. Conner’s rhetoric must set a record for disingenuousness.
…in a press briefing held as Senate debate began yesterday, acting Agriculture Secretary Charles F. Conner charged that the five-year legislation had been inflated by $37 billion through the use of “tax increases and budget gimmicks.”
“It will need significant changes. . . . We have a long way to go,” he said. Conner said details of the administration critique will be issued shortly in the hope that it “will impel Congress to work with us.”
Despite the enormous congressional popularity of the bill — which funds farm subsidy programs, food stamps, environmental programs and biofuels research — the administration believes it can sustain a veto by rallying Republicans against tax provisions used to fund some of the new outlays.
Conner charged that the bill’s funding depends on $15 billion in new taxes and added that “we don’t believe other sectors should pay” so that farm subsidies can go to “millionaires living on Park Avenue.”
Oh, brother. A Bush administration flunkie actually said that ‘other sectors’ shouldn’t have to pay to enrich ‘millionaires living on Park Avenue.’ And what exactly are the Republicans so worried about paying? You’re not gonna believe it.
Most House Republicans voted against that chamber’s version of the bill in July after Democrats offset new spending on nutrition programs by tightening tax rules on U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. Democrats said they were merely closing a loophole, but Republicans and the White House branded it a tax increase.
The Senate version, which includes a new $5.1 billion fund that farmers could tap when hit by weather losses, would be financed in part by a different set of measures clamping down on tax avoidance techniques used by business.
Politicians promise to fund new programs without raising taxes by closing tax loopholes, all…the…time. All the time. And it so rarely ever happens. It’s always either a tax hike (e.g., on cigarettes), spending the Social Security surplus, or taking out loans to China.
So, here the Democrats come along and fund nutrition programs and emergency agricultural relief through the closing of tax loopholes. And the Republicans still call it a tax increase and threaten to veto it.
Best of all, they have the unmitigated gall to explain their reasoning as not wanting rich folks that live on Park Avenue to get any richer. No. We can’t give them a subsidy but we can protect their offshore tax shelters.
You know what? This is a perfect illustration of how deeply dishonest and cynical the Republicans are. Who knows why Bush really wants to veto the bill? It must be that he just doesn’t like it when Democrats appropriate money. It makes it harder to steal.
