yaz
Member
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2007
- Messages
- 1,298
I sent my congressman an email criticizing his "yay" vote for the farm bill. This is his response. Does anyone here have anything they would like me to respond with? Please tell me your thoughts about his response.
July 7 in the Year of our Lord 2008
Dear (name removed),
Your letter regarding the Farm Bill has been received and frankly was a bit tough. I hope you have not closed your mind on the possibility that there may actually have been some good reasons to vote for a bill that had things in it which you and I both feel were inappropriate and unnecessary. The fact is that I have not gotten Potomac fever, and have not bought into the Washington notion that giveaways are always the thing to do. I am very frustrated and have been a part of a conservative group of Republicans that have made incremental, and sometimes very significant, victories that the media does not discuss. The liberals in the national media do not like to talk fairly about what we as conservatives get done within their pet bills, and the conservatives usually only want to talk about the things they disdain in bills.
Voting in Congress is not an exact science and weighing the pros and cons of bills is sometimes very difficult. With the current Democratic leadership deciding what does and doesn't come to the Floor for a vote, we don't get bills to the Floor that contain only the things that I want to see there. It is a battle every single day for incremental victories that I hope gets us closer to where the country should be. The daily battles take their toll physically and mentally, but the fight in me is as strong as ever.
As for agriculture, I would rather take hard-lines with the other countries who unfairly subsidize their products, but the previous three administrations have not done that and no matter which candidate wins this November it is unlikely to happen in the next four years. So until we get a true conservative in the White House that does the negotiating and represents us in the U.N. and on trade issues with a vengeance, I hate to see us lose too much more of our agriculture trade. More international trade imbalance is simply not good for the country, and we have a tremendous amount of agriculture in [my local area] that is affected. With that in mind, here are some facts about which you are not hearing or reading regarding the "Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008," also known as "the Farm Bill" and the circumstances surrounding it.
As you surely know, [my local area] endured two years of extreme drought that devastated farmers and ranchers, only to be followed by major flooding. I am still not fond of subsidies at all, and some recipients are far too wealthy. However, the new Farm Bill actually moves in the right direction by substantially limiting the eligibility for receiving subsidies. Thankfully, the new Farm Bill reduced the amount of Adjusted Gross Income that a person may earn by 70% for an individual and 40% for a couple to still be eligible for the subsidy. These and other restrictions that were seriously tightened in this Farm Bill could stand to be tightened further, but this was a major first step after assiduous negotiations. Some conservative commentators were upset because the bill did not completely eliminate subsidies and had other elements that some of us do not support. But there were moderate Democrats like Collin Peterson who helped us get the major concessions which made this a better bill than most conservatives who were involved could expect in this political climate. This was a HARD-FOUGHT VICTORY that no one seems to want to talk about. In addition, there are other provisions in the bill that will keep some farmers and ranchers afloat after some disastrous years while allowing some of our domestic agriculture products to compete with subsidized products from other countries.
Additionally in this Farm Bill, the timber tax reform provisions were FINALLY addressed, which provide long-awaited and drastically needed fairness to the vital timber industry in [my local area] and across the nation. The forest industry has been particularly and severely hurt by a significant increase in overseas competition, in foreign subsidies, and, as all of us has, by rising energy prices. In the last Congress, Republican leaders knew that the timber tax needed fixing, knew we were losing jobs and hurting America, and we actually got it passed in the House and were close to getting it done in the Senate, but the Senate could not get it done because of one Senator (and he wasn't from [my state]). I tried to buck up our House Republican leaders to play hardball to get it through the Senate as well during negotiations, but it did not get done in the last Congress.
The forest industry still employs more than 12 million hard-working Americans in a wide variety of capacities, but survival is delicate and difficult in this industry. In addition, timber is a unique product which requires long holding periods, involves large front-end expenditures, and is vulnerable to the significant risks associated with natural disasters. The U.S. Tax Code has added to the problem by placing the timber industry at a distinct disadvantage as federal taxation of corporate timber is the second highest of all competing nations in the world. Over the last ten years, the industry has lost nearly 200,000 jobs within more than 330 paper and wood mills, including the [name removed] paper mill in [area removed]. This was not simply a Lufkin problem as illustrated by one Longview businessman who pointed out to me that he lost nearly 10% of his business when the Abitibi Paper Mill closed.
The provisions in the latest Farm Bill will help ensure that we use our timber resources in a safer and more sustainable manner to produce American jobs and make Americans less dependent on foreign sources of such a basic, but critical, material. Please keep in mind that this letter is being written to you by a guy who voted against the Farm Bill last year and prevented some of the horrors in that bill from happening. It also meant that this bill that traditionally covers a five year prospective period was put off for a year. Please also note that these votes do not happen in a vacuum. I see private national polls almost weekly that indicate that if this bill is put off for even six more months, there will likely be too many Democratic votes in the Senate and House to make ANY of the inroads we made in this bill, like severely restricting who can receive the farm subsidies. You should also note that many of the most inappropriate giveaways in last year's un-passed, five-year Farm Bill were eliminated.
Last year's version of the Farm Bill had a four billion dollar tax increase that was added to allow vast expansions of entitlement programs - even to other countries. That Farm Bill would have violated more than 50 tax treaties, thereby threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs in [this state] alone, as some of the affected businesses let us know. For that and other good reasons, many of us revolted against the bill last year.
There actually were a couple of moderate Democrats who put their political life within their own party on the line this year to allow as much conservative input as we got. All indications and the best judgment seemed to indicate that if we killed this bill again this year, the one that would pass next year and likely be veto-proof, even if a Republican were in the White House, would be massively destructive to the country's well-being.
Overall, after weighing these and other issues and tracking the progress of the Farm Bill from the previous forms to present, it seemed clear that significant progress has been made and would be lost if not passed now. With all the parts of the bill that irritate me so and that are flawed, I ultimately felt compelled that in the overall best interest of east Texans, I needed to vote for it. I still have some major concerns with certain provisions in the Farm Bill. However, the most disconcerting provisions within the bill were taken several steps in the right direction with significant incremental reform. Weighing the pros and cons for many in [this state] after two years of drought and the floods, I voted in favor of the bill. I am very sorry that my vote caused you such consternation, but I have seen what rejection of good incremental reforms has cost our country.
We did not get into the major problems we have with over-spending and massive entitlements overnight. They usually came one incremental step at a time. In the last Congress with Republicans in the majority, many of us conservatives fought hard for reforms of many things which resulted in bills containing very good incremental steps back in the proper direction. You have no idea how heart-breaking it is to fight for such good steps only to have someone say in the greater name of libertarianism or ultra-conservativism that they were voting "No" because they did not believe such a program should exist at all and so they did not care how many steps we made in the right direction. They just wanted one big step to end a program and would vote against anything smaller, which cast them on the same side of a vote with the most liberal, socialist Democrats. It is a tough way to lose a hard-fought improvement.
I am trying very hard to represent you properly and in your best interest. Your sound input is always very valuable in helping me do that, and I do not say that lightly. But, I very much hope that all my years of trying to live right and do right, and to make proper decisions no matter how difficult, are not now so meaningless that at the first sound of some internet or talk show or article that does not give you the full picture, you immediately assume the worst of me. I am still the same person, warts and all, who was elected and I am trying very hard to do the right thing each day. If you have gotten this far in reading my long response to you, I am very grateful, just as I will always be for the opportunity to represent you in Washington these last 3 ? years. Though I have learned a great deal during that time, my methodology in working through a decision to vote for or against a final bill has not changed - and it still isn't any easier.
Once again, thank you for letting me hear from you. I do hope this heartfelt explanation has been of some assistance. If you are going to be mad at me, I at least appreciate your listening to the struggles involved in dealing with such a bill.
With kindest regards, I am
Very Truly Yours,
Hon. (name removed)
