Bob Schaffer: “The farm economy is really going to be strained this year. The administration's failure to aggressively and assertively…”

“The farm economy is really going to be strained this year. The administration's failure to aggressively and assertively open up foreign export markets is really leaving American producers high and dry in many cases. Also, the debacle in Brazil, for example, with the devaluing of the currency and the role indirectly that our government played, is going to result in cheap soybeans swamping the U.S. market. Now, we have some soybean growers out in our parts of the country, it is going to be a bigger issue perhaps in the Midwest, but for agriculture in general these kinds of realities over the next months are going to, unfortunately, result in a very troubled agricultural economy in America. And I think we are going to feel the brunt of it around August, September, and October, in those months, and on into the year 2000. But at a time when we know that competitiveness issues, that regulatory issues are going continue to be hitting hard on American farmers and ranchers we need to seize on that opportunity to focus on the other government-imposed fixed costs of doing business, the inheritance tax certainly being one of them. Capital gains tax relief is something else that could make the difference between farmers declaring bankruptcy and selling out versus remaining in production agriculture and hopefully passing these productive agricultural assets on to their children.”