Bob reported in his message
"KHPA & MBA joint state meeting":
> ...Quote American Beekeeping Federation flyer:
> "The purpose of the flyer is to raise money to save the bee
> lab funding which the Bush administration is wanting to cut."
Sadly, the ABF's track record in the area of actual
tangible results from their "lobbying" in support of what
they think are beekeeping priorities is about what one would
expect for a Tupperware party organized by anarchists.
Your money may be much better spent sending your own
letters to your own congresscritters with your own stamps,
and supporting the Bee Labs one beekeeper at a time, one
fax at a time, one letter at a time. Numbers DO matter
in such things, and if every 10th beekeeper merely sent
one postcard, this would be MUCH more effective than the
comic-opera posturing of self-proclaimed representative
organizations of beekeepers, each with memberships in the
less-than-1% range, each presuming and claiming to represent
100% of US beekeepers, both constantly droning on with the
same laughable claim about how "honey bee pollination is
worth billions to the economy".
Perhaps if someday the ABF and the AHPA could learn to play
nice with at least each other, they might each demonstrate
the organizational maturity to present a cohesive united
front on some issue, and thereby be taken seriously by
elected representatives. I'm not going to hold my breath.
On a more specific level, it would be unreasonable to expect
the Bee Labs to escape an across-the-board USDA-ARS cut, as
it should be clear that when the 2002 farm bill was written,
the nation had a budget surplus left over from the Clinton
years and a strong economy, which was how a $73 billion
increase appeared in the 2002 farm bill.
By 2007, the budget situation will be much, much, worse -
the country is facing a deficit of $350 billion to $400
billion. Clearly, it will be difficult to maintain the
current level of overall USDA funding. The trade deficit
is so bad, that the administration is resorting to talking
about the "Capital Account Surplus", which is a real knee-
slapper to those of us who know one end of a sharp pencil
from the other. http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/002001.html
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid consume nearly all of
mandatory federal spending. The entire USDA budget is only 1
percent of the total federal budget. The Bee Labs are such
a tiny percentage of the USDA budget, that the "threat to
the Bee Labs" last time around was cured in "mark up" process
without even any discussion, where Congress simply declined
to agree with the suggestions of the Bush administration in
regard to funding. Congress has that right, and the President
can either sign the bill as a whole, or attempt to veto the
bill as a whole, Food Stamps and ADC included.
All the White House has done is attempt to eliminate all
"earmarked" items, those items funded by Congress that were
not first suggested by the last White House proposed budget.
Their thinking seems to be that if the White House did not
suggest it, it has to be "pure pork", which is clearly not
the case in every case.
In fact, several congresscritters have already gone on record
to promise that they will "hold the line" on USDA funding,
despite the effort of the "Unitary Executive Branch".
http://westernfarmpress.com/news/2-15-06-Bush-budget-for-agriculture/
"Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, who
led efforts to rebuff similar administration proposals for cutting
the agriculture budget in 2005, said he expected Congress to reject
them again....
Democrats were quick to call the president's proposals 'full of
gimmicks and low on common sense', as Rep. Collin Peterson, ranking
member of the House Agriculture Committee said.
'The plan does nothing to address escalating federal spending or
this administration's unending record of deficits', he said.
'For agriculture, at best, this budget is a rehash of the
president's strategy of sacrificing farm support for a
sell-at-any-cost international trade policy.'
'Federal budget deficits adversely impact the entire American
economy and efforts to address deficits should strive for equity
in sharing the pain of adjustment', Eastland said. 'Spending on
commodity and conservation agriculture programs account for less
than 1.5 percent of total mandatory spending, yet commodity programs
are being asked to shoulder more than 8 percent of required reductions.
Agriculture should not be singled out or asked for greater sacrifice
than other federal departments.'..."
In the specific case of the USDA ARS, the sole "problem" the Bush
administration notes is that Congress dares to use "earmark" budget
requests to fund research programs not overtly favored by the Bush
administration, no big surprise given that the "science policies"
of the current gang in possession includes referring to the "Big Bang"
as the "Big Bang THEORY". :)
The proposed White House Budget includes the following about
the USDA ARS:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail.10002004.2005.html
"Even though ARS has a strong internal merit review process, as shown
in the following write up, the answer received a 'no' because a portion
of the projects are appropriated through Congressional earmarks that
allocate the funding by purpose and to specific locations."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/summary.10002004.2005.html
"We are taking the following actions to improve the performance
of the program:
* Discontinuing funding proposal for unrequested projects
enacted in prior years.
* Modifying the long term measures to show the actual use
of research outputs (discoveries and new technologies)
rather than just the number developed."
So, if the proposed budget cuts Bee Lab funding, all we
have to do is point out that pollination and bee research
are mission-critical to the highly touted "Food & Agriculture
Defense Initiative", 'cause you can't "defend" what you can't
grow in the first place.
To contrast with the nearly perfect evaluation of the USDA ARS,
look at what the White House has to say about the USDA Marketing
programs, including the Honey Board:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail.10003001.2005.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/summary.10003001.2005.html
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---
|
