Farm Bill Wasn’t Something I Could Vote On (Rep. Lynn Westmoreland)

I wanted a farm bill that I could vote for. Agriculture remains Georgia’s No. 1 industry, and the University of Georgia is a leader in agricultural research. The farm bill we passed last week wasn’t something I could vote on.

For one, it raised taxes on foreign companies that operate in the United States and create high-paying American jobs. These businesses employ more than 5 million Americans and about 176,000 Georgians. In my district alone, we have Chinese companies opening plants in Thomaston – which suffered manufacturing job losses in the textile industry – and in Peachtree City. Kia, which is South Korean, is opening a car plant in LaGrange. These are important jobs in these areas of Georgia and we need to encourage that, not discourage it by tacking on a $7.5 billion tax burden.

Second, I have concerns about the expensive expansion of the food stamp program and about the emphasis on conservation. Everybody likes conservation of land in theory, but we don’t see the repercussions until years down the road when local governments have to raise taxes on everybody to make up for the revenue lost when large tracts of land are taken off the tax rolls.