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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Smilin' Norm's worthless IOUs
According to Business Week, Sen. Smilin' Norm Coleman (R-MN) might have negotiated with the Bush administration for nothing but a briefcase full of worthless IOUs:That hasn't stopped lawmakers from lining up to collect IOUs from the White House. "Obviously we're working very hard to address their concerns," says Assistant Trade Representative Matt Niemeyer. But an examination of the deals by BusinessWeek shows they aren't exactly being etched in stone. Take an elaborate bargain offered by the Administration to win the votes of Senators Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Senate Agricultural Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). Because CAFTA would relax the import quota on sugar, it's unpopular with America's sugar beet and cane farmers. So Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns offered up a smorgasbord of sweeteners: The government would either buy up the offending sugar coming from Central America and turn it into ethanol, pay sugar cane farmers in CAFTA countries not to ship their product to America, or ship surplus U.S. crops to Central America free of charge if producers there would refrain from exporting additional sugar to the U.S.
Trouble is, the Administration may not be able to keep those promises. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, it's unlikely the Administration has the authority for those gambits. Not only that, the American Sugar Alliance, a farmer's group which likens Johann's deal to "putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound," estimates that the U.S. government would lose $1.51 for each gallon of ethanol produced from sugar. Coleman, disappointed the deal won no praise from Minnesota sugar beet growers, laments, "We came away from the table thinking that we got just what we asked for."
Everyone here at 3WN sincerely hopes that from now on, Smilin' Norm always gets exactly what he deserves.
