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STATEMENT OF SENATOR TOM HARKIN (D-IA) ON BUDGET CUTS TO AGRICULTURE AND THE CONCLUSION OF WORLD TRADE NEGOTIATIONS (WTO) IN HONG KONG

12/18/2005

 WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, released the following statement today:

“The agriculture budget-cutting measure being pushed by the Bush administration and Republican Congress was fundamentally misguided and unfair from the outset. I have opposed from the beginning cutting the agriculture budget at a time of record energy costs and slumping commodity prices. This entire exercise imposes sacrifice from Americans least able to afford it in an attempt to camouflage far larger Republican tax breaks for the wealthy. It is the utmost in hypocrisy to use ‘budget reconciliation’ as a means actually to worsen the federal budget deficit, as is being done here.

“The Republican Congress has inflicted virtually all of the real cuts in agriculture on farm conservation, rural economic development, value added agriculture, renewable energy and agricultural research initiatives. These are all forward looking initiatives we wrote into and funded through 2002 farm bill. Remarkably, absolutely nothing was done in these budget cuts to limit the size of payments going to America’s very largest farming operations and the excessive concentration of farm program dollars to these select few Americans.

“These budget cuts fly in the face of what the Bush administration and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns have been telling farmers and rural communities around the country: that the future of farm policy lies in greater focus on conservation, renewable energy, rural economic development and agricultural research. Ironically, at the very same time the Bush administration and this Republican Congress are cutting funds to these forward-looking initiatives, U.S. negotiators in Hong Kong have been pushing for cuts to U.S. farm income and commodity programs. Taken together, Republicans here in Washington appear to have nothing to offer for the future of U.S. agriculture other than to cutting back all forms of assistance to U.S. farmers and rural communities.”