For those who have followed me for awhile know that there is a problem facing farmers and ranchers. And that is the lost of property rights to the special interests of environmentalists. For those who are fairly new to Sibby Online, you can find more about this by reading through my Tony Dean index. Tony Dean is one of South Dakota’s leading far-left environmentalists. He is also a Sportsman Outdoor writer, but his main camouflage is his claims to be a conservative Republican.
At the very top of today’s front-page of the Argus Leader is a report on the drought relief that recently passed the Republican controlled Congress and signed into law by President Bush. The environmentalists are not happy about how the drought relief was funded:
The disaster package is being offset by reducing baseline funding for the Conservation Security Program from $9 billion to $6 billion. The CSP is a new program created in the 2002 Farm Bill.Unlike the 20-year-old Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to idle fragile cropland and plant it in permanent cover, the CSP rewards farmers and ranchers for using environmentally friendly practices on working crop and range land.
The program, made available to farmers and ranchers on watersheds identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has gotten off to a slow start, with only $41 million earmarked nationwide this year.
No South Dakota watersheds qualified this year.
Since the CSP program is only a way for the environmentalists to assert their control over South Dakota farmers and ranchers, who received no benefit…the fiscally responsible method of providing drought relief from within the current budget should be Ok to South Dakota agriculture interests. Right? But continue reading the Argus report:
The fact that the CSP is just getting under way might have made it easy for Congress to raid it for a disaster bill, but "it sets a terrible precedent," said Dennis Wiese, South Dakota Farmers Union executive director."By taking money out of this fund, we have reopened the Farm Bill," Wiese said. "That's never happened.
"Even though farmers and ranchers will receive assistance for weather-related disasters incurred in 2003 or 2004 crop years, the fact remains that the assistance is taken at the expense of another farm program, and that is unfair."
What the Argus Leader did not disclose about Dennis Wiese is the fact that he is a partisan Daschle supporter. I saw him at the Masonic Temple in Mitchell on October 21 during a Daschle community dinner wearing a Tom Daschle sticker on his shirt. He also attacked me with a letter in the October 15 Mitchell Daily Republic regarding a letter I wrote containing Daschle's voting record on the 2003 Omnibus bill. Today’s MDR has published my response:
Dennis Wiese, president South Dakota Farmers Union, October 15th letter attacked me for misleading readers of this paper. He should have gotten his facts straight before writing his factually incorrect letter.He referred to my “letter printed in mid-September regarding drought aid”. I had no letter printed in this paper during September let alone “mid-September”.
Wiese then makes a feeble attempt to provide cover for Daschle’s votes against $3 billion in drought aid, by saying, “it was amending his own $6 billion amendment. Wrong, the $3 billion amendment was voted on 27 minutes prior to the Daschle amendment. When Daschle’s amendment did come to vote, Daschle could only muster 39 votes. Five Democrats voted against it, while five more Democrats did not vote at all on the amendment. So much for Daschle’s clout.
Daschle and his partisan supporters, such as Dennis Wiese, should blame Daschle for the ten Democrats that Daschle couldn’t bring to the table before they start placing blame on President Bush and John Thune. After Daschle did not have the clout to increase drought relieve from $3 to $6 billion, he twice voted against the entire 2003 Omnibus bill that contained other funding he is now taking credit for.
The Daschle campaign has been running negative attack ads at the President and John Thune for doing nothing about drought relief in 2002. The ad used Gene Williams who received $15,907 in disaster subsidies during 2002 thanks to Thune’s work.
Daschle’s campaign has also lied about the Second Amendment, abortion, and tax cuts. But Daschle’s biggest lie is that the people of South Dakota are helpless and not capable of finding a job, providing healthcare, and we cannot survive without him.
After posting the BPI letter that took Daschle to task for lying about a value-added agriculture business, it is disturbing to read a Argus Leader report using a partisan Daschle supporter, represented as a South Dakota Ag expert, who is actually representing the interests of far-left environmentalists…at the expense of South Dakota farmers and ranchers.
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