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Excuses, excuses
By Seymour Klierly The House and Senate returned from their week long Independence Day recess. It seemed that before they could even get off the plane they started hurling excuses as to why Congress has been slow to pass meaningful legislation. Republicans blamed Democrats for the lack of progress, and Democrats blamed Republicans for stalling votes. Those excuses are now spilling over into the looming farm bill debate. On July 10, Senate Ag Chairman Tom Harkin told reporters the reason he may not bring his proposal forward before the month-long August break is because Republicans are stalling the Department of Defense authorization bill. Really? That's the reason he won't release his proposal and schedule committee work? It doesn't have anything to do with the rumors that he doesn't have enough votes to pass his plan out of his own committee? The real reason he isn't releasing his draft is that he wants to wait until Majority Leader Harry Reid can schedule time on the floor for debate and a vote. There are four weeks in July that Congress is in session. Harkin needs at the bare minimum one week of Senate floor time dedicated to the farm bill. For the entire Senate to pass a farm bill in one week, the proposal would have to be rather non-controversial, which is not the case this year. There just isn't enough time for Harkin to build a coalition of supporters in committee. Because Harkin doesn't want to give committee members and their staff four weeks during the August recess to tear his proposal apart, Harkin will wait until September to show his hand. The crafty chairman has been around long enough to know that the less time folks have to review his several hundred page bill, the better his chances. Senate Budget Chairman and fellow Democratic Ag Committee member Kent Conrad of South Dakota is working on an alternative to Harkin's mysterious farm bill. Conrad recently told producers that any plan will have to be at least tolerable to Southern producers, who have been a big target for Harkin. Harkin admitted, almost half jokingly, that he may get "rolled" by Conrad's proposal. "Rolled" is an inside the beltway term describing when members of a committee chairman's own party support an alternative proposal that garners more votes than the chairman's. Since committee chairmen are selected based on seniority and their ability to build enough support to move legislation, it rarely happens. In the ag committee, there is no bigger legislation than the farm bill. The fact that the chairman can't or won't put together a proposal that a majority of the committee can support is an interesting testimony to his leadership. Chairman Harkin can blame Republicans all he wants for the slow progress on the farm bill, but that excuse doesn't pass the smell test. Rather than making excuses, maybe it's time our elected officials start working together on compromises, instead of ideological markers that pit commodities against each other. Date: 7/11/07
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