The new farm bill passed by Congress earlier this year offers American voters another glimpse of the stark differences between the campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. Although neither candidate was present for the final farm bill vote, Sen. Obama voiced qualified support for the bill, while Sen. McCain opposed its passage.

Acknowledging that the farm bill was "far from perfect," Sen. Obama said, "With so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good." He supported all 15 titles of the farm bill, including the Permanent Disaster Program, which provides farmers with relief from agricultural production losses due to natural disasters. Sen. Obama also supported the dairy-specific provisions, including reauthorization of the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payment program and the inclusion of forward contracting inside the Federal Milk Marketing Orders.

Sen. Obama said he had hoped the bill would put a tighter cap on payments to farmers and was "disappointed that those who blocked payment limitations chose to put big agribusiness ahead of family farmers."

Sen. McCain, however, consistently opposed the farm bill, calling it "a bloated piece of legislation." Expressing his concern for taxpayers, he said, "The real cost of the bill will exceed the government's budget by about $18 billion," making it much more expensive than the $10 billion bill estimate provided by the Congressional Budget Office.

Sen. McCain also specifically opposed the taxpayer-funded Market Access Program, which provides annual funding for the U.S. Dairy Export program. Although he believed that the increased funding and focus on food assistance and nutrition programs included in the farm bill were worthwhile, McCain strongly opposed the large farm subsidies that would distort markets and artificially raise food prices for consumers.

Look for more election news online at www.dairycounts.org and in future issues of News Update.