Senator Johnson

I was honored to have lunch with Senator Johnson today.  He is up in Aberdeen this weekend to do some community outreach and political work for his party.  Today he was on campus.  About 40 of us were in the room and I was honored to sit next to Sen. Johnson at our table for lunch and then introduce him to the room when he got up to talk.  He talked about budget matters and how they will be resolved depending out the election's outcome.  If the Dems take over, budget matters will be delayed until January when they are in control.  If Republicans retain power, an omnibus bill will likely be passed in a December lame duck session.  Sen. Johnson obviously prefers the former scenario to the latter.  He took questions, of which I think readers will be interested in two.  First, Iraq.  I think I can fairly sum up Sen. Johnson's argument as being that our military presence in Iraq, whatever its original merits, is not longer serving much good.  We should take the next 12-18 months to scale back our military commitment.  He said at one point that we should not "chaperon their civil war."  He said much more than this about Iraq, but this, I think, is the gist of it.  I find his arguments compelling. I asked him to talk about what is going on with the Farm Bill. Sen. Johnson answered as follows.  The current bill runs out next September.  He is concerned about how much funding there will be, especially for conservation programs like CRP (about which I had specifically asked).  I believe he said 80% of CRP contracts run out next year.  The money and conditions might not be there to make renewal attractive to farmers.  Interestingly he talked about how the Farm Bill is linked with free trade talks.  The current round of WTO talks might result in significant reductions in price supports and direct commodity subsidies.  But that might mean more money for conservation. Sen. Johnson called it going from the "amber box" to the "green box."  I assume that metaphor means less money for grain subsidies (amber) and more money for environmental protection (green).  I don't how that would effect ethanol. I assume very little as that is being subsidized on different principles than other agriculture programs (i.e., we are paying for energy, not corn).  Overall, he said the next farm bill will look much like the last.  Anyhow, it was a pleasant event.  Oh, and he really dislikes the Bush tax cuts!