The House has passed the Tax Relief Extension Act of 2012 or the commonly known fiscal cliff bill and it does include an extension of the 2008 Farm Bill. The Indiana congressional delegation votes added up to 6 no’s and two yes’s, and among the no votes was Rep. Marlin Stutzman.
“Unfortunately the bill that came out of the Senate and is to be signed by the President is going to raise taxes but does not address the drivers of our debt and actually increases spending and became a real problem for me in spite of some of the things that I did like in the bad.”
Stutzman is an Indiana farmer who also sits on the House Ag Committee and he was glad to see an extension of the farm bill. He’s uncertain with the power makeup of Washington right now what kind of new 5-year bill can be written, but he believes lawmakers will get to work on it soon.
“It should start roughly in March or April. The House will pass a budget come March or April as well and that will give Ag Committee the numbers that it needs to start crafting a farm bill. I think you’ll see a lot of work carried over from the previous work that has been done moving into the new congress. And I’m sure that Chairman Lucas is going to be very anxious to get right on it and get back to work on an ag bill so we don’t find ourselves in this situation again come the end of September when the Farm Bill would expire. The timeline I think you’re going to see move fairly quickly once we get those final numbers out of the budget committee.”[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2013/01/Stutzman-votes-no-on-cliff.mp3|titles=Stutzman votes no on cliff]
Another positive in the cliff bill Stutzman pointed out is permanency offered in the estate tax, which changed but not as dramatically as was proposed. Hear more in the full HAT interview:[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2013/01/Rep-Stutzman-on-Fiscal-Cliff-bill.mp3|titles=Rep Stutzman on Fiscal Cliff bill]