Farmers Should Be Concerned About
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
WILLOW STREET (Lancaster
Co.) About 80 percent of the
entire USDA budget of about $55
billion doesn’t go to ag-related
programs.
Instead, more than three quar
ters of it, or around $35 billion,
goes to welfare, and mostly to the
food stamp program.
And, under President-Elect Bill
Clinton, if cuts are made in the
bloated bureacracy that is USDA,
they’ll more likely come out of the
20 percent remaining that funds ag
education and subsidy programs.
That’s the message delivered by
Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-16th
Dist.) at the Ag Issues Forum
attended by about 25 ag business
representatives at Willow Valley
last week.
Lot to worry about
If some of the policies of the
elected administration are carried
through, farmers have a lot to wor
ry about such as the proposed
inheritance tax reform bill and the
ever-present spectre of expanded
wetlands preservation.
Walker said it is hard, at the pre
sent time, “to judge where we’re
going on legislation policymaking
over the next four years, because
agriculture is not a topic that was
addressed very fully in the demo
cratic platform,” he said. "In the
course of the campaign, it was dis
cussed only peripherally, and then
only in generalities, so it’s very
difficult to know where specific
policy options will be exercised in
the new administration.”
He said the personalities of
those appointed will have a lot to
do with the decision on policies,
and right now is too early to tell.
But one thing is clear —farmers
need to look at what possible
inheritance tax issues may be com
ing down the pike.
Against proposal
“I would urge all of you who are
members of organizations that are
related to agriculture in any way to
begin to work immediately to build
a foundation against a proposal to
reduce the $600,000 exemption
down to $200,000,” he told the
attendees.
The sponsor of the bill to lower
the exemption, Richard Gephart,
U.S. House majority leader, will
have consequences that could
prove frightening to farmers.
Because that figure $200,000
was brought up again and again
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in the campaign, pointing to what
the Clinton administration figures
is a ‘ ‘base analysis of who was rich
and who wasn’t,” said Walker.
The tax figure may not only take
in income, but also net worth of
more than $200,000, according to
Walker. While the figure may raise
as much as $54 billion of new
revenue, “it will be absoluately
devastating to sma’l business, in
particuitur the fanners.” Because
we would be right back in the
“soup,” said Walker, of a few
years ago, when many farmers had
to sell part of the farm just to pay
the inheritance tax in order to
claim the farm. Raising the exemp
tion, as what happened a few years
ago, to $600,000 “saved Lancaster
County farming,” he said.
The bill to lower the exemption,
if passed, would prove devastat
ing, he said. “People will figure
out ways to pull back their assets
out of any kind of productive activ
ity and get it into shelters of one
kind of another. It will have a lot of
very, very bad impact if it passes.”
Environmental stance
Also, the phantom of stepped
up wetland protection may spring
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back, because of the strident envir
onmental stance of the Clinton
administration. Clinton could
decide, simply by executive order,
all of a sudden to take hundreds of
thousands of acres of farmland out
of production because of the cur
rent guidelines of what wetlands
are.
Even the sides of freeways
could be considered wetlands,
according to Walker. The deci
sions will be up to the people Clin
ton appoints to key positions.
Also, the trade issue and
what happens to the general agree
ment on tariffs and trade (GATT)
is tied to the ongoing negotia
tions on the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Many countries continue to adopt a
wait-and-see attitude.
But the cuts to USDA could hit
farmers the hardest, because many
of the programs that farmers
depend upon could get trimmed or
cancelled, according to Walker.
And the situation for some prog
rams may be grim unless far
mers get together to form coali
tions to have an effective voice,
according to Walker.
And it will take some lime to
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 28, 1992-Al7
Upcoming Farm Policies
implement many of Clinton’s bill,” but would take at least six
proposed programs. The first to months to be prepared, and quite
come would be a “lax stimulation some time to be enacted.
Senate Approves Ag
Land Preserving Measures
HARRISBURG (Dauphin Co.)
The Senate has taken steps to
protect Pennsylvania’s prime
farmland by approving legislation
that encourages the reuse of old
industrial sites for business expan
sion, according to the bill’s spon
sor, Sen. David J. “Chip” Bright
bill (R-48).
Brightbill, chairman of the
Senate Environmental Resources
and Energy Committee, said the
bill would redirect the way com
panies think about expansion
projects.
“Companies rarely target old
industrial sites for expansion or
start-up operations because they
know under existing law they
would be held responsible for
cleaning up any pollution on the
site, even if they were not the ones
who created it.”
Public economic development
and redevelopment agencies are
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often the only groups trying to
redevelop old industrial sites,
which otherwise might be aban
doned due to cleanup policies.
“As a result of the limited inter
est in these sites, developers and
companies look to our open space,
our prime farmland to build or
expand,” Brightbill said.
Senate Bill 1810 would exempt
economic development agencies
and redevelopment authorities
from liability for cleaning up pol
lution they did not cause. The
measure also protects develop
ment agencies from cleanup liabil
ity when their only role is holding
property titles for loan collateral.
Sen. Brightbill said the bill also
protects new industries moving
onto sites owned by economic
development agencies from
unreasonable cleanup liability by
only holding them responsible for
any pollution they cause.
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4th in a Series