WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has continued to pressure the Senate Agriculture Committee to include reasonable and legitimate payment limits in the farm bill that is expected to soon be debated in the Committee. Grassley, along with Senator Byron Dorgan, sent a letter to Committee members.
“The House’s attempt at payment limit reform is far short of what’s needed. There are enough loopholes in the bill that a person can actually increase the amount of subsidy one can get,” Grassley said. “The Senate needs to take a leadership role on this issue and take action that actually means something.”
Grassley and Dorgan are authors of legislation that would close loopholes in the farm program which allows some mega-farms and corporate farms to collect seven-figure government checks each year. The legislation, known as the Rural America Preservation Act, would set a limit of $250,000 for farm payments in an attempt to better target farm program payments to family farmers.
Here is a copy of the letter.
August 24, 2007
Dear Colleague,
As you know, the reauthorization of our farm program provides us an opportunity to improve the system we have in place to protect our family farmers from the unpredictability of the marketplace and the vagaries of Mother Nature.
One feature of our farm program that is in need of meaningful improvement is the level of support payments for commodities that we all agree are crucial to the economic and nutritional well being of all Americans.
The current payment limits promote farm consolidation, artificially increase land prices, and create barriers for a new generation of farmers eager to enter the industry. By allowing this to continue, we are wasting taxpayer dollars, abusing the public’s trust, and undermining the very farm safety net that our family farmers depend on to survive.
Reasonable adjustments to payment limits are needed to make our farm program efficient and equitable, and the Dorgan-Grassley proposal is the best solution to the current problems. This legislation will limit annual per farm commodity subsidy payments to $250,000, end the “three entity” rule that individuals currently use to evade limits, and ensure that payments actually go to engaged farmers. The Dorgan-Grassley proposal has garnered the support of a wide range of groups within the agriculture community as well as liberal and conservative policy organizations.
We hope that, s.1486, can be added in the Agriculture Committee to ensure that the full Senate understands the importance of moving meaningful reform during consideration of the farm bill.
Sincerely,
Byron Dorgan
Chuck Grassley