AP's Desk At USDA Empty
May Stay That Way
It's another sign of the times in the national media's ongoing free fall, but in this case the development bodes very ill for agriculture policy: the Associated Press has transferred its reporter on the USDA beat to the Republican race for the presidency and has no plans to replace her. Libby Quaid broke the news to me as she was finishing her reporting on this terrific story (in full below the fold). It could be the last story filed with an Associated Press byline from USDA.
Quaid is the most recent in a long and distinguished line of journalists on the national ag beat. In my 30 years working on agriculture policy and farm bills, I can't remember a time when AP did not have a reporter based out of USDA. (Does anyone know just how long AP had a USDA beat?)
In the near term, AP's going AWOL from the department will significantly impoverish media coverage of the impending farm bill debate. It is very difficult for overstretched Washington-based AP reporters covering congressional delegations or other topics to stay abreast of agriculture policy or USDA administrative developments. State-based AP reporters usually have their hands full, too, making it almost impossible to budget time for reporting and writing stories on agriculture topics that, let's face it, are obscure to much of the world and most journalists.
Many agriculture journalists have lamented to me that their ranks are steadily shrinking. News staffs are downsizing and consolidating beats, and ag is often a loser in those reshufflings. Specialty farm publications face declining ad revenue in competition from the Web. And when so few general interest publications have a significant farm or ranch audience, editors have increasingly questioned not just the idea of an ag beat, but the value of assigning any spot ag stories, features or investigations at all.
I would have expected AP to hang on at USDA and fill coverage holes created by ag beat attrition in both DC bureaus and regional outlets, a pattern we've see across many beats and media outlets in this age of consolidation and Web competition.
Instead, the exit of AP from the national farm policy scene may mark the highest-profile downgrading of ag journalism yet.
Farm payment limits could affect wealthy farmers in D.C., New Jersey
By Libby Quaid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 22, 2007
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration wants tax breaks for nearly everyone, but not when it comes to wealthy farmers.
President Bush is asking Congress to halt farm subsidies to anyone making more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income. The current income cap is $2.5 million.
The places with the biggest percentage of wealthy farmers, according to tax returns, are in Washington, D.C., New Jersey and California. That's the conclusion of a Bush administration analysis obtained by The Associated Press.
Those people are most likely to lose farm payments under Bush's proposal.
Lawmakers warn that such a limit might unintentionally hurt honest, hardworking families in rural America.
The Bush analysis, based on IRS data, tells a different story.
“A fair number of these people do live in states like New Jersey, some in Washington, D.C.,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in an interview.
“These are probably investor-owners, people that have a large income and they own a farm somewhere. By any definition, they're doing very well,” Johanns said.
The analysis shows these places have the biggest share of farm returns with adjusted gross income above $200,000:
Washington, D.C., 28.99 percent.
New Jersey, 13.41 percent
California, 12.14 percent
Nevada, 11.52 percent
Florida, 11.09 percent
Not everyone at this income level gets farm payments, which the government provides to support farmers' income and keep crop prices steady.
Nationwide, subsidy payments go to fewer than half of all farmers. And the lion's share of payments go only to growers of the five major crops – corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton.
In all, about 38,000 farmers would be cut off, the administration estimates. That includes 25,000 farmers and 13,000 other people who get rental income from farms. More than 2 million people report farm businesses to the IRS.
Critics of farm subsidies agree with Johanns, albeit with harsher words.
“Farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program,” said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. “They are promoted as saving small family farmers in a Norman Rockwell vision of the world. The reality is, the majority of farm subsidies go to corporate farms.”
Farm-state lawmakers insist that's not the case.
“They're not fat-cat farmers,” said Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
A farmer might have to invest $5 million to make a farm operation work, said Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who is also a certified public accountant.
“The amount of money it takes to farm these days, most people have no concept,” Peterson said. “It sounds good when you talk about this number. If it's done wrong, it could have a profoundly negative effect on agriculture in America.”
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., contends the $200,000 limit is arbitrary.
“I am concerned that this proposal will most likely not be responsive to individual farming situations when they most need our support,” Chambliss said.
Southerners like Chambliss have opposed previous attempts to limit payments because southern farmers who grow cotton and rice would feel limits most keenly. That's because their crops cost more to grow and therefore get higher subsidies.
The administration counters that the income limit is unlikely to hurt farmers who buy a new combine or make other purchases to run their farms. Adjusted gross income is a figure reached after deducting business expenses. This includes depreciation or write-offs of equipment as well as business insurance.
The limit, part of Bush's proposal for a new farm bill, would average a farmer's income over three years.
The income limit is a new approach to an old problem. The ceiling on farm payments is $360,000, but loopholes allow some people to collect millions of dollars above the limit.
“This is another bite at the apple,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who ardently supports payment limits.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Grassley was trying to get his colleagues to agree to a different approach: closing loopholes and lowering the payment ceiling to $250,000. Doing so would save taxpayers $1 billion over the next decade, he said.
Johanns said the approach is worth considering if it works.
“We've had payment limits of different stripes over 25 years; none have worked very well,” he said.
“We think there are about 38,000 people somewhere in the U.S. who are doing very, very well by anybody's definition,” he said. “There's just got to be a point at which you graduate from receiving cash subsidies from taxpayers for farming. This seems to be a very reasonable, if not moderate, approach.
Comments
Just another sign of the times. The WPost had a piece on the Maryland legislature. In 1920 or so there were 22 farmers (about 25 percent or so), now it's down to 1.
Posted by: Bill Harshaw | April 2, 2007 12:33 PM