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Government shutdown will affect farmers

A policy specialist says the events of late last week may help to avoid a government shutdown on Thursday.  American Farm Bureau Public Policy Director Dale Moore says the resignation announcement by John Boehner reduces the likelihood of a shutdown.

“The Speaker has made it clear he’s going to get something done, and I’m betting he doesn’t want to walk out the door with a shutdown on his watch,” Moore told Brownfield Ag News on Monday.  “Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has pretty much made the same statement, ‘we’re going to get something done,’ so I tend to be a glass-half-full guy and my sincere hope is that we do not go through a government shutdown.”

If it does happen, Moore says farmer business at the Farm Service Agency office will have to be put off and farm program payments will arrive late.  USDA market and crop reports will stop, but he says some functions of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are considered to be essential and won’t be cut.

“All those inspections that are supported by user fees will continue,” said Moore, “however anything that is funded by either Packers and Stockyards, [or] the Grain Inspection Division; those things that are appropriated will not be operational.”

Moore says government shutdowns raise the debate on the federal budget process, but they do not save money.

“Whatever money folks think they have been saved during that shutdown period gets spent in all of the effort and activity to basically restart the engine,” he said.

If the House and Senate fail to agree on a federal budget or on a continuing resolution to fund the government by Wednesday night, the government shuts down on Thursday.

AUDIO: Dale Moore (9 min. MP3)

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