Saying ‘no’ isn’t enough

There are times when just saying “no” isn’t enough. We hope that’s where the House Agriculture Committee is coming from. Last week the committee rejected a package of cost-saving policy changes proposed in the Obama administration budget. The changes would have modified the current Farm Bill. In fact, there’s a lot of merit to considering all of those ideas when hearings begin later this spring on a 2012 Farm Bill. In its budget message to Congress, the administration asked for fewer federal dollars to go toward underwriting crop insurance, for a new and lower cap on the maximum amount of payments awarded to an individual recipient and for a new way to calculate eligibility for many payments made through programs in the farm bill.