MADISON - Assembly Republicans on Tuesday provided the outlines — but few concrete details — of their alternative to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ $8.5 million plan to help struggling dairy farmers.
GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester told reporters he wanted to cut property taxes and income taxes for farmers with a plan that he called “bigger and bolder” than Evers’. He said he also wants to put more toward expanding dairy exports than the $1 million Evers has proposed.
But many of his ideas have not been finalized, and Senate Republicans haven’t decided yet whether they want to go along with Vos’ initiatives.
“We would probably like to do something that is bigger and bolder than what he first proposed,” Vos said at a Capitol news conference with 18 of his colleagues. “It would probably cost more money than the $8.5 million (in Evers’ plan) because while that is something that is definitely helpful to farmers, it is probably too small an effort to make a substantial difference.”
Evers said he was open to changes to his plans, though he questioned whether tax relief would get to farmers fast enough.
“I’m open to all sorts of ideas and I’m glad all sides now have decided to get going on this particular issue,” Evers told reporters. “We have an opportunity and a relatively short period of time to make a difference. If it’s tax (cuts) and income tax credits, that kind of money is always deferred and I think people need help now and so I would prefer to look at issues that are more immediate than that.”
And Evers said he would be happy to spend more than he initially recommended.
“If they want to put more money into issues — have at it,” he said. “I’m with them.”
Evers in last month’s State of the State address recommended a slate of bills to improve exports, encourage farmers to diversify their products and provide more staffers to assist them.
Farmers welcomed the attention, but many of them said that the issue they really wanted to see addressed is milk pricing — an issue Evers and Vos didn’t include in their respective plans.
Evers has called a special session on his proposals, which have been largely embraced by GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau. Fitzgerald on Tuesday expressed openness to Vos’ ideas as well but didn’t commit to a specific agenda.
“Republicans in the Senate have said since the start that we’re all ears when it comes to plans that help farmers,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “We’re taking an all-the-above approach as a caucus and are continuing to review all the bills in front of us as we look to address the special session call.”
SPECIAL REPORT: Dairyland in Distress
In 2019, a worldwide surplus of milk drove down the price farmers received to the point where many lost money every day they milked their cows. The price has improved in recent months, but for many farmers the increase has been too little, too late after five straight years of depressed prices going back to late 2014.
Family dairy farms are at the mercy of trade wars, economies of scale and a complex, often opaque pricing system. And Wisconsin continues to lead the nation in the number of farm bankruptcies and has seen the number of farmers dying by suicide rise.
One of Evers’ bills would spend $1 million over two years on an initiative to help boost U.S. dairy exports to 20% of the nation’s milk supply by 2024, up from about 16% now.
Vos expressed support for that idea but said he wants to put more money into the effort.
Other bills by Evers would provide grants to producers who want to add a new product to their operation; add five positions at the Agriculture Department to provide mental health services for farmers; and require the department to offer grants and provide education related to organic farming.
Vos and his colleagues said their alternatives would include a property tax break for farmers, though they hadn’t determined how large it would be.
They also said they wanted to give income tax credits to sole proprietors for their insurance costs. That would help some farmers, as well as some owners of other types of business.
John Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders, said Evers’ proposals have come up short in addressing the severity of farm losses.
“I was really hoping to see a lot more,” Peck said. “If there’s a crisis, why aren’t we in crisis mode? We are somehow thinking the marketplace is going to fix this. Well, it’s not, and throwing more money at the UW to do more studies, or for mental health services, or pleading with more foreign countries to buy Wisconsin products is not going to cut it.”
The prices farmers receive for their unprocessed, unpasteurized milk are largely determined by the forces of supply and demand and federal government programs.
Minimum prices are set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture using complicated formulas based on the wholesale market value of various dairy products.
That system isn’t going to be changed by state government, said George Crave, a dairy farmer and president of Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese in Waterloo.
“It’s a supply and demand market, and unfortunately farmers don’t get quite enough of the consumer dollar,” Crave said.
“It is kind of discouraging to see that, when we finally get profitable prices for our milk, some of the industry people say these are unsustainable prices,” he added.
Crave said he was skeptical of proposals to lower dairy farmers’ taxes and provide more government services.
“I don’t see that working out very well for the state coffers to start lowering taxes. I wouldn’t expect it to be a very long-term solution,” he said.
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Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.
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