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Thatcher: extension more likely
In spite of the looming fiscal cliff and expiring farm programs, the lame duck legislative gears are moving slowly. Lawmakers are still posturing about what they want as that combination of tax increases and spending cuts gets closer, but that may soon change, according to Mary Kay Thatcher, congressional relations director at the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington, D.C.
“I would anticipate that in the next, maybe, week we’ll start to see some breaking and really maybe some compromising,” Thatcher told Brownfield Ag News Monday. “But I think there’s a very good chance that we do somewhat of a down payment on these expiring tax provisions, on the sequestration, and we kick the can down the road.”
Chances are slim that a farm bill will pass before the year’s end, said Thatcher, at the Missouri Farm Bureau convention, but she anticipates that a one-year extension will be passed with provisions to include expiring livestock disaster assistance and the Milk Income Loss Contract program.
“And then you start having the problem of any kind of extension,” said Thatcher. “We have 37 expiring provisions, so once you do two of them, somebody says what about my third program; and once you do three, somebody says how about this fourth program. You know, where do you start and stop? It won’t be an easy thing.”
Lame duck congresses don’t usually do much, adds Thatcher, “and I don’t think this one will be any different.”
AUDIO: Mary Kay Thatcher (3 min. MP3)
AUDIO: Radio story with Mary Kay Thatcher (1 min. MP3)
Tags: Farm Legislation, Missouri
Everyone else says a one year extension is a bad idea EXCEPT it seems Thatcher–while everyone else in Ag policy says ” we have to pass the farm bill” she has been saying since last spring basically ” no way we can pass a farm bill.”
Makes me wonder…is she calling it like she sees it or is she so closely allied with the House Repub leadership that she is carping their line? I hope for Bureau members its the former rather than the latter.
Just seems weird to me though.