Editor’s Note: Officials with the McCain Farm Team provided Farm World with the farm policy platform for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). This material can be found online at www.johnmccain.com
Farm World is publishing these policies – along with the views of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on page 7 - to help inform voters prior to the Nov. 4 election. Additional details of McCain’s farm policy can be found at www.mccainfarmteam.com
John McCain recognizes that agriculture is one of America’s greatest strategic assets. All Americans benefit from the safest and most efficient food production and distribution system in the world. Throughout our history, American farmers, ranchers, timbermen and commercial fishermen have formed part of the bedrock of our prosperity.
The benefits of American leadership in agriculture extend well beyond our borders - America’s contribution to meeting the food, fiber, feed and energy needs of a growing world population through efficient production and technology innovation are critical to our national security and world peace.
The continuing success of American agriculture and the health of America’s rural heartland require leadership that understands that productivity and innovation are created by the effort, ingenuity and investment of individual Americans. Our nation’s security depends on the health of American agriculture. As President, John McCain will address the key issues facing agriculture and rural America:
•Establishing a comprehensive energy strategy
•Controlling taxation and regulation
•Judicial restraint and preserving property rights
•Providing a sustainable, market-driven risk management system for farmers
•Promoting agricultural markets and reducing trade barriers
•Improving incentives to invest in technology and rural infrastructure
•Encouraging common-sense conservation and food safety measures
•Securing America’s borders and implementing a fair and practical immigration policy
•Recognizing the role of agriculture in national security
•Strengthen America’s economic competitiveness by eliminating wasteful government spending
Energy security There is no single guaranteed path to America’s energy security. We cannot afford to ignore any option that moves us toward this urgent goal. Our challenge today is to encourage investment in all available options for energy security.
We must avoid distorting the food, feed and energy markets by focusing on specific solutions or technologies, recognizing that complex energy production and distribution systems require a critical mass before they become economically efficient.
We must recognize the importance of the bio-fuel technologies available to us today, regardless of whether they become long-term solutions or serve as a transition toward continued innovation and investment in tomorrow’s energy solutions. America should look to its government to provide a tax and regulatory framework that fosters a predictable environment and encourages long-term investment in energy technology, production and distribution networks as we rely on private investment to overcome the challenges of developing new energy solutions.
Our nation’s future security and prosperity depends on the next President making the hard choices that will break our nation’s strategic dependence on foreign sources of energy and will ensure our economic prosperity by meeting tomorrow’s demands for a clean portfolio.
McCain has made the necessary choices - producing more power, pushing technology to help free our transportation sector from its use of foreign oil, cleaning up our air and addressing climate change, and ensuring that Americans have dependable energy sources. McCain firmly believes in and will lead the effort to develop advanced transportation technologies and alternative fuels to promote energy independence.
McCain’s proposal to address America’s energy security includes:
•Expanding domestic oil and natural gas exploration and production
•Taking action now to break our dependency on foreign oil by reforming our transportation sector
•Investing in clean, alternative sources of energy
•Protecting our environment and addressing climate change - a sound energy strategy must include a solid environmental foundation
•Promoting energy efficiency
•Addressing speculative pricing of oil
McCain believes alcohol-based fuels hold great promise as both an alternative to gasoline and as a means of expanding consumers’ choices. Some choices such as ethanol are on the market right now. The second generation of alcohol-based fuels like cellulosic ethanol, which won’t compete with food crops, are showing great potential.
McCain supports flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) and believes they should play a greater role in our transportation sector. In just three years, Brazil went from new cars sales that were about 5 percent FFVs to over 70 percent of new vehicles that were FFVs. American automakers have committed to make 50 percent of their cars FFVs by 2012. McCain calls on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs.
“Alcohol fuels made from corn, sugar, switch grass and many other sources, fuel cells, biodiesel derived from waste products, natural gas, and other technologies are all promising and available alternatives to oil,” McCain said on April 24, 2007. “I won’t support subsidizing every alternative or tariffs that restrict the healthy competition that stimulates innovation and lower costs. But I’ll encourage the development of infrastructure and market growth necessary for these products to compete, and let consumers choose the winners. I’ve never known an American entrepreneur worthy of the name who wouldn’t rather compete for sales than subsidies.”
Taxation and regulation McCain has a comprehensive economic plan that will create millions of good American jobs, ensure our nation’s energy security, get the government’s budget and spending practices in order, and bring relief to American consumers. Small businesses are critical to job growth, especially in rural America. McCain is committed to supporting family businesses with:
•Reducing the estate tax rate to 15 percent and permitting a generous $10 million exemption to enable farmers and ranchers to pass along their heritage to the next generation.
•Low individual tax rates
•Access to capital from low tax rates on dividends and capital gains
•Limiting the unnecessary intervention of government regulations that severely alter or limit the ability of the family farm to produce efficiently
•Improved investment and research incentives to ensure that farmers and ranchers have access to the most modern technology
•Bringing the budget to balance, reducing federal borrowing, and controlling spending to reduce the burden on the economy
•Providing a responsible safety net for farmers when they’re confronted with natural disasters and inadvertent government policies that adversely affect markets and the farmer’s ability to produce |
