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U.S. Representative discusses agricultural concerns with Alexander County growers

By Micah Henry

Taylorsville Times

Fifth District United States Representative Virginia Foxx was in Taylorsville on Friday, April 1, meeting with farmers from the area at a breakfast gathering. The event was held at Harry Gant’s Steakhouse.

Several topics were discussed during the meeting, including health care costs, rising fuel prices, tobacco subsidies, milk prices, and other concerns.

Foxx noted there are several problems with health care costs. She noted that she had signed a bill commonly called the Association Health Plans. This would allow small businesses to gather together in pools for the purpose of buying health care more affordably than on an individual basis.

“One of the difficulties with this is do our companies allow that,” said Farm Bureau Field Representative Howard Reinhardt, who was present at the meeting.

He said that Farm Bureau, at one time, had a group of some 60,000 individuals.

“Last year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield said, ‘No more. We’re dissolving your group. Everybody’s going to transition into our non-group policy,’ which they call their Blue Advantage policy. The association idea is great, and its something that built our organization back up in the 1950s and ’60s,” Reinhardt said.

Other items of concern to farmers were discussed, such as taxes.

“We can talk about the estate tax, or death tax,” said Foxx. “There are a lot of unfair taxes, but I think that’s the worst among them. I believe we’ll see permanent repeal of the death tax. The Speaker [of the House] is committed to it, the Presi-dent wants to see it happen, and they said that right after the Easter break they want to bring it up.”

Foxx also touched on fuel prices and explained that fuel prices today are actually less than they were in the 1980s if the value of the dollar is taken into account. She also stated that gasoline prices would have to reach about $4 per gallon to equal what the cost was in the 1980s.

Rising gas prices are an impetus behind alternative fuel research, Foxx noted. An energy bill which is due to be introduced to the House soon holds a billion dollars in research funds for alternative fuel cell research.

On the topic of tobacco, Reinhardt noted that farmers of the crop are facing a free enterprise market, as opposed to the government-controlled market of years past.

Foxx explained the tobacco buyout program in this way: “I think what’s happened over the years is that the government has so controlled tobacco and not allowed the market to operate in ways that it might have operated. That’s the feeling--to buy people out that want to get out and then let the market operate and get the government out of control of it.”

Foxx noted that she was not in Congress last year when this legislation was sculpted and this was her assessment of the buyout program.

Reinhardt explained that the money for the buyout is coming from the tobacco companies not from the government itself.

“The legislation just set up the guidelines to implement the program,” he stated.

Milk production was also of concern. One farmer noted that there is not enough spread between Class 1 and Class 3 milk. Another felt it is unfair that the fluid milk market in this region is treated like the cheese market of other parts of the country.

“I don’t believe you’ll see anything proposed that will hurt dairy prices,” said Foxx.

“Some of the things do hurt the Southeast that do not hurt the nation as a whole,” said Reinhardt. “There are a lot of regional differences in this industry.”

“The President wants a two year extension of the MILC [Milk Income Loss Contract],” said Foxx, “and what the dairy folks have told us in D.C. is they want to keep the extension going until the Farm Bill is done.”

According to the USDA website, the Farm Service Agency’s MILC Program financially compensates dairy producers when domestic milk prices fall below a specified level. The program is authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill and has no set funding level. In a nutshell, these payments are made on a monthly basis when the Boston Class I milk price falls below $16.94 per hundredweight (cwt). The program currently runs until Sept. 30.

Foxx said she is on the Government Reform Committee and will do her best to facilitate worthwhile changes to government policies.