Energy cost, drought compound Bush cuts

Ag budget squeeze

Kansas Farm Bureau president Steve Baccus has just two words for President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal. “It stinks,” Baccus said. Baccus is not alone in his opinion. Across Kansas and the U.S., farm groups are already organizing to take their case to Congress.

“We have to get the message across that this isn’t going to work,” Baccus said. “They can’t just pull the rug from any one sector the way they are trying to do to agriculture.”

Baccus said that the agriculture budget amounts to only one half of 1 percent of the total federal budget. But he said the proposed budget hits agriculture for 8 percent of the total spending cuts.

Nearly $9 billion in cuts over the next 10 years are being proposed for agriculture, including changes to dairy programs, crop payments and marketing loans.

Wichita Eagle