Hayseeds No. 202

The War and Albany.

It looks likely that the Assembly will be taking up and passing a resolution condemning the Iraq War. Assemblyman Felix Ortiz is circulating a memo to members asking for them to sign on to his resolution, “Memorializing Congress to Discourage the Escalation of the Military Presence in Iraq”. He is also the chairman of the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee.

Previously, Assemblyman Adriono Espailliat had promised to sponsor a “LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION calling upon the Congress of the United State of America to oppose the increase of the number of U.S. troops deployed to Iraq”, but so far he has yet to introduce such a resolution. That hasn’t stopped constituents from writing in about that issue through Progressive Staters website.

While I haven’t seen the Ortiz resolution yet, my guess is it sounds like it’s better written for the state legislature then the Espilliat one that mostly is a cut and paste sample one from Progressive Staters.

It would be great if New York State passed a resolution on escalation in Iraq, but it’s a challenging thing to do politically for most members. Once it’s actually introduced and on the calendar, it will likely to be passed, but after a lot of time wasted debating it.

Groups Hope for Reform.

A lot of GooGoos and Environmentalists are really hoping when all the people come back to Albany in the middle of the blizzard next week, that they too will have ideas of reform in their heads.

Gillibrand's First Bill.

For those of you who have been hiding out under a rock, Kirsten been spending a lot of time with the cows pushing her first piece of legislation, that would increase the subsidy and price for raw milk sold to processors in the state.

It's a rather short piece of legislation, H.R .1583. Basically the bill extends the Milk Income Loss Contract from 2007 until 2012 at a rate of 45% payment for prices below $15.58. It also increases the subsidy to include the first 4,800 hundred lbs of milk, doubling it from the existing limit of 2,400 hundred lbs of milk cap that it currently stands at.

In other words, if the federal milk pricer sets milk to equal $13 a hundred weight, you get a check for the government for $1.16 for every hundred weight you produce. A holstein cow produces about 220 hundred weight per year on average. With the existing cap, that means you can get subsidies on your first 100 cows at your dairy—Gillibrand's bill would double that.

That begs an interesting question: why are we giving big milk producers even bigger checks, when the problem is that we already have too much milk? Why not increase the reimbursement rate to 65% or 75% and leave it at the existing limit? I guess the ag people are arguing that if you do this it promotes artificially low milk prices and forces the government to subsidize more. But doesn't the existing policy already do that?

I still think we should be doing more to subsidizing the small farmer. Clearly, farms with more then 100 cows are already getting all kinds of market advantages just by the scale of efficiency. A hundred cow dairy can exist with minimal environmental effects, larger ones are more problematic. You can milk somewheres in the range of 50-80 cows per hour for each person working on the farm. You can argue that small dairies like this can't sustain themselves on their minimal profit margins, but neither can these larger ones much better.

At any rate, take a look at the Text of H.R. 1583 and see the text yourself if you want the specifics.