Republican Stands Tall for Crop Insurance

Ever since the 1970's, Congress has been messing around--torn between two imperatives:

1. You must help your constituents when they are hurt by a natural disaster.
2. A viable crop insurance program has no place for political action.

Several times Congress (mostly Republicans, but that may just be my partisan bias at work) has loudly claimed that new legislation has got it right--farmers will have crop insurance and Congress won't pass ad hoc disaster programs. But regularly, when drought or flood or hurricane strike, and enough areas are affected, Congress passes a program. And if the new program requires reversing past commitments and undermining crop insurance, so be it.

This describes the latest version of this political two step, brought to you by John Thune, stalwart Republican Senator from South Dakota:

According to a statement from Thune's office, without the clarifying legislation, many livestock and forage producers who suffered losses would be deemed ineligible for assistance. That estimate was echoed by the Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus Leader which earlier said the original provision would cause as many as 90 percent of South Dakota's 17,000 livestock producers to be ineligible for disaster assistance. This is because USDA's Office of General Counsel determined that the supplemental appropriations bill contains language stipulating that for producers to be eligible for assistance under the livestock indemnity program, they must have participated in either the non-insured crop disaster assistance program (NAP) or a federal crop insurance pilot program.

Facts and figures. According to USDA, nationwide participation in NAP during 2005 and 2006 was less than 13 percent. Thune says the reason the low NAP participation rate that payments for losses generally amount to only $1 or $2 per acre. "It is not sound policy to exclude livestock and forage producers from disaster assistance because they chose not to participate in what many consider an ineffective program," said Thune.