The chance for fast-tracking the farm bill as an attachment to the payroll tax cut extension has been lost. Congress today will vote on a final compromise package negotiated between the House and Senate that would keep the unemployment tax at 4.2 percent (from 6.2 percent) through the end of 2012, reduce unemployment eligibility from 99 weeks to 63 weeks (or 73 weeks in some states), and provided a fix to the Medicare plan that would prevent a drop in physicians' payments. As we noted on 14 February, Senators Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) had advocated attaching a farm bill to the payroll tax cut extension.As for the president's proposed budget cuts for agriculture contained in the FY 2013 budget proposal present...

TAGS – Energy