David Obey: “I want to make one point: that I speak not as the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Appropriations, but simply as a…”

“I want to make one point: that I speak not as the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Appropriations, but simply as a Member of Congress from Wisconsin. One of the deficiencies with this rule is that it does not allow for an amendment to extend the Milk Income Loss Contract program. Now, that program was authorized in the 2002 farm bill. It is currently scheduled to expire next year, while other commodity programs run through the end of the farm bill, September of 2007. In my view, dairy farmers ought to be treated under the milk program in exactly the same way that farmers of other major commodities are treated under the farm bill. If Congress fails to extend the milk program through to the end of the farm bill, then dairy farmers across the country will be at a disadvantage when Congress prepares a new authorization in 2007. That is because, under existing budget rules, there will be no budget score for milk, and only the milk price program will appear in the budget baseline.”