Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) says he spoke Sunday morning with senators working on a deal to avert the fiscal cliff and they have yet to reach an agreement. 
 
 “There is no deal yet. I continue to hope for a bipartisan agreement,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 
 
 "We’re trying to line up a Rubik’s cube right now, and we're not there yet. We’re meeting later today. This is going to continue, I think, on until tomorrow." 
 
 Barrasso jumped on President Barack Obama for “outsourcing” the fix to Congress. 
 
 “What we’re seeing here is a monumental failure of presidential leadership," Barrasso said. "The president's the only person with a pen who can sign this. And it’s the president’s responsibility to work on something that the House will pass, the Senate will pass and that he will sign. But he is outsourcing this. 
 
 “He continues to campaign and lecture when he ought to be focusing on the number one problem that hurts us as a country, which is our debt.” 
 
 Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) jumped in to defend the president, saying Democrats are united on a plan to extend middle class taxes and Republicans are standing in the way. 
 
 Read more about: Barack Obama, John Barrasso, Fiscal Cliff, Donald Edwards ||||| While much of the nation is transfixed by the tax hikes and spending cuts that will kick in if the nation goes over the fiscal cliff, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warns that there are other cliff issues being overlooked: the farm bill. 
 
 Vilsack said that unless Congress can pass a farm bill, the agricultural sector of the economy will be devastated, and that will have ripple effects felt by almost every American. 
 
 "Consumers, when they go in the grocery store, are going to be a bit shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 a gallon for milk, they see $7 a gallon for milk," he said during an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "And that’s going to ripple throughout all of the commodities if this thing goes on for an extended period of time." 
 
 The farm bill is set to expire on Jan. 1, and Congress has yet to agree on an extension or replacement. Vilsack said the impacts will also affect renewable energy, such as biofuels, agricultural exports, conservation programs and farmers' markets. And he said efforts to slash funding for the food stamp program are misguided. 
 
 Vilsack said 92 percent of food stamp recipients are seniors, the disabled or children of working families. 
 
 “It’s an important program. It’s misunderstood,” he said. "When you understand who you're helping here, then it becomes a little bit more difficult to advocate for significant and massive cuts as some have suggested.” 
 
 Read more about: Tom Vilsack, Farm Bill, Milk ||||| Tthere are better than 50/50 odds of lawmakers reaching a deal on the so-called fiscal cliff, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted on Sunday. 
 
 "There's a real possibility of a deal. I've been a legislator for 37 years, and I've watched how these things work. On these big, big agreements, they almost always happen at the last minute. Neither side likes to give up its position," Schumer said on ABC's "This Week." 
 
 "They eyeball each other until the very end. But then, each side, realizing that the alternative is worse, comes to an agreement," he explained. "So while an agreement is hardly a certainty, I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this last minute." 
 
 "Give me your odds. I said 50/50," said host Jonathan Karl, filling in for George Stephanopoulos. 
 
 "I think a little higher than that," Schumer said. 
 
 Read more about: Chuck Schumer, Fiscal Cliff ||||| The new dairy program would in part manage supply by setting production limits for farmers who enroll in a market-stabilization program. 
 
 The new dairy program would in part manage supply by setting production limits for... Read More 
 
 The new dairy program would in part manage supply by setting production limits for farmers who enroll in a market-stabilization program. Close 
 
 The specter of milk jumping to $7 a gallon as U.S. farm programs expire probably will be held off because regulators will need time to write new pricing rules, even if Congress fails to avert a so-called dairy cliff. 
 
 House and Senate agriculture committee chiefs yesterday backed a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill, trying to stave off higher prices that emerge when expired rules force the U.S. Department of Agriculture to revert to policies set in 1949. Neither chamber has voted on the plan, or on narrower alternatives, with both houses set to resume work today. Still, should Congress fail to deal with milk costs that may double without action, price increases may be slowed while the USDA seeks to turn back time, analyst Dave Kurzawski said. 
 
 “Everyone won’t start selling their butter and cheese to the U.S. government on Jan. 2,” Kurzawski, a consultant at INTL FCStone Inc. in Chicago, said in an interview. “We are going to need to find a resolution to this, though.” 
 
 The most recent farm law, passed in 2008, expired Sept. 30. Without a replacement, agricultural programs return to earlier rules that are the basis of all subsequent legislation. The effects of that transition have been delayed because of the growing seasons of different crops. Dairy, a year-round business, is the first major commodity affected. In November, the USDA estimated the price of a gallon of fresh whole milk at just under $3.54. 
 
 Draft Bill 
 
 The draft bill agreed upon by the farm-panel leaders would extend the expired farm law through Sept. 30, provide disaster aid for producers affected by this year’s drought, and make changes to milk policy. The new dairy program would manage supply partly by setting production limits for farmers who enroll in a market-stabilization program. 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has opposed that concept, calling it worse than current policies that he termed “Soviet-style.” The proposal wasn’t on a list of measures released last night to be considered by the House during today’s session. 
 
 President Harry S. Truman’s farm policy from 1949 required the government to buy supplies of a product until its price approached “parity” with the cost immediately before World War I. Adjusted for a century of inflation, the USDA milk-support price today would be $39 per hundred pounds, more than double the dairy futures price in Chicago today. 
 
 Price Supports 
 
 This price-support policy, which once brought rivers of dumped milk and free cheese for the poor, was gradually abandoned as U.S. agriculture law became more market oriented. 
 
 Massive government purchases “would dramatically increase government spending, would force consumers to pay significantly more for dairy products, and would impose long-term damage to the dairy industry,” the Washington-based International Dairy Foods Association wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week. 
 
 The group, which represents Kroger Co. (KR), the largest U.S. grocery chain, and Nestle SA (NESN), the world’s biggest food company, urged the USDA to “proceed in a thoughtful and deliberate manner” in any move to implement the 1949 law. It said today it opposes the dairy plan included in the proposed farm-bill extension for potentially limiting the supply of milk by encouraging farmers to cap production. 
 
 ‘Ironic’ Threat 
 
 “It is ironic that the threat of higher dairy prices for consumers, caused by the possible implementation of the 1949 Act, is being used to force Congress to pass a new program that will result in higher prices,” Jerry Slominski, the group’s senior vice-president for legislative and economic affairs, said in a statement. 
 
 The National Milk Producers Federation, an organization of farmers and dairy cooperatives, has supported the supply- management concept. 
 
 Vilsack hasn’t offered specifics as to how the USDA would intervene in milk markets, while warning consumers that inaction on a new farm bill will have far-reaching consequences. 
 
 “Consumers, when they go in the grocery store, are going to be a bit shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 a gallon for milk, they see $7 a gallon,” he said yesterday on CNN’s “State of the Union” broadcast. “That’s going to ripple throughout all of the commodities if this thing goes on for an extended period of time.” 
 
 Bill Plans 
 
 Should Congress not reach a deal on either a separate extension of agriculture legislation or its inclusion in a plan to avert the so-called fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to take effect tomorrow, a new farm law may be delayed until at least March. 
 
 The House Agriculture Committee plans to start drafting new legislation on Feb. 27. Its Senate counterpart will debate a new bill “soon,” should an extension fail, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said yesterday. The Senate passed a five-year plan in June, followed by the House farm panel in July. The full House never voted on a plan. The Congress that convenes Jan. 3 must restart work on a farm bill. 
 
 In the meantime, implementing 1949 rules would “take a considerable amount of time,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas said in an e-mail last week. The Oklahoma Republican said Vilsack should follow the federal rulemaking process, including a public comment period, before moving ahead. 
 
 Delayed Effects 
 
 Even if the USDA immediately embraced the 1948 law, the effects might not reach consumers for weeks, said Mike North, a senior risk-management adviser at First Capitol Ag in Platteville, Wisconsin. Swift action on rules is unlikely, he said. 
 
 Government purchases would follow specifications that not all processors could immediately meet, he said in a telephone interview. Then, products must be packaged and distributed to retailers. Because the commodity is only about half the total cost of a dairy product, doubling the price paid to farmers may make $4 milk “only about $6 milk once it reaches the consumer,” he said. 
 
 Still, the possibility of higher prices may push up milk futures, and raising consumer costs, said FCStone’s Kurzawski. “The uncertainty isn’t good for the industry,” he said. 
 
 Farm bills, which Congress usually passes every five years, set policy and fund USDA programs including food stamps and crop subsidies. They frequently lapse before a new law is passed. The bill that ended in September took effect on June 18, 2008, more than nine months after its predecessor expired. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net ||||| House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow are backing a short-term extension of a farm law that lapsed Sept. 30 as the Obama administration warns that without congressional action, retail milk prices could almost double. 
 
 “I would hope that as soon as is humanly possible, a decision will be made to allow us to take action” on the extension, Lucas told reporters off the House floor. “We need to take positive action, put this issue to rest, and make sure that it is clear to everybody in this country that the farm bill policy has certainty and that we will not have $8 or $9 milk.” 
 
 The draft bill would extend current law, along with disaster aid for producers affected by this year’s U.S. drought and changes to current milk policy, through Sept. 30. It would reduce mandatory outlays by $30 million through fiscal 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The bulk of the spending would come in the first year, and as such it would actually increase spending by an estimated $555 million through fiscal 2017. 
 
 Other Bills 
 
 The proposal is one of three farm-related draft bills released over the weekend in the House of Representatives; all of them would stave off the potential jump in consumer milk prices should government commodity programs begin to lapse tomorrow. 
 
 The second measure would extend most of the current law through Jan. 31, and the third would protect only against possible dairy-price spikes. Those two are opposed by House and Senate Democratic agriculture leaders. Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, called a 30-day extension a “poor joke on farmers that offers no certainty.” 
 
 The most recent farm law, enacted in 2008, expired after attempts to pass a new five-year proposal failed. Without that plan, agricultural programs automatically return to rules passed in 1949, the basis of all subsequent legislation. 
 
 The effects of that transition have been delayed because of the growing seasons of different crops. Dairy production, a year-round business, is the first major commodity affected. In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture put the price of a gallon of fresh whole milk at just under $3.54. 
 
 ‘Parity’ Price 
 
 Under President Harry S. Truman’s farm policy, the government bought supplies of a product until its price reached “parity” with the cost immediately before World War I. Adjusted for a century of inflation, the Agriculture Department’s milk-support price today would be $39.08 per hundred pounds, more than double the dairy futures price of $18.60 at 8:34 a.m. in New York today. 
 
 Under the revised dairy plan, written by Peterson, the government would manage the milk supply by setting milk- production limits for farmers who enroll in a market- stabilization program. The proposal eliminates programs that pay farmers when prices fall below a certain level, replacing them with initiatives designed to protect profit margins through insurance programs and by limiting output, which would raise prices. 
 
 Milk Oversupply 
 
 Oversupply of milk that drives down prices has been a perpetual difficulty for dairy producers. The National Milk Producers Federation, an organization of farmers and dairy cooperatives, has supported the plan, while the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents milk processors such as Dallas-based Dean Foods Co. (DF), has opposed it for potentially driving up the cost of their raw materials. 
 
 The market-stabilization plan was included in both the Senate’s 10-year, $1 trillion version of the farm bill it passed in June and a bill approved in July by the House Agriculture Committee but not taken up by the full chamber. It wasn’t in the 2008 farm law, which the one-year draft legislation would extend -- adding the new dairy program. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has called the current dairy program “Soviet- style” management of the farm economy that the Peterson plan would worsen. 
 
 The dairy language remains a sticking point, according to several Republicans, including Representative Fred Upton of Michigan. They said Republican leaders have yet to decide whether to try to incorporate Peterson’s preferred dairy language -- a change that would be key to winning support from the Democrats who have been following Peterson’s lead on this bill. 
 
 “We’re going to let the House work its will,” said Upton, who predicted that “we’re going to be looking at a straight extension of the farm bill for the next nine months.” 
 
 Milk-Price ‘Ripple’ 
 
 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack yesterday warned that without a new farm bill, consumers will pay the price. 
 
 “Consumers, when they go in the grocery store, are going to be a bit shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 for milk, they see $7 a gallon for milk,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “That’s going to ripple throughout all of the commodities if this thing goes on for an extended period of time.” 
 
 Lawmakers are considering a farm package as part of a resolution to the larger budget dispute involving more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1. 
 
 Several House Republicans said that if an agreement is reached to deal with the larger tax and spending issues, the Senate could attach a one-year extension of the law, which funds food aid to poor families as well as subsidies to growers of corn, cotton and other crops. 
 
 “We’re mostly waiting for the Senate to see what they put together,” said Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House. 
 
 “If the leadership were waiting until the last minute,” said Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, “we’re sure as hell there.” 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net; Derek Wallbank in Washington at dwallbank@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katherine Rizzo at krizzo5@bloomberg.net; Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net ||||| 3 years ago 
 
 Washington (CNN) - Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday credited President Barack Obama with winning the "fiscal cliff" battle, but argued the final deal will likely do little to help the nation's deficit problem. 
 
 "The president will get a political victory, a trophy for the president politically, but it will not change our debt situation or reduce our deficit in any meaningful way," Graham told CNN. "It will be a political victory that is hollow in nature when it comes to preventing our country from becoming Greece." 
 
 
 
 Follow @politicalticker 
 
 The senator further criticized the president, blasting him for failing to take action "in a bipartisan manner" or "embrace big ideas like entitlement reform." 
 
 "He is really, quite frankly, small-minded in consequential times. I find him to be a hard guy to know and understand," he said. 
 
 His comments came after Graham declared on Fox News that the president has "won" the fiscal cliff negotiations, even though a final deal has yet to be announced. 
 
 "Hats off to the president - he won," Graham said. 
 
 "He stood his ground," the senator also said. "He's going to get tax rate increases, maybe not (for people making) $250,000, but on upper-income Americans." 
 
 With less than two days before the January 1 deadline to prevent major tax hikes and automatic spending cuts from taking effect, Senate leaders and senior staff are hunkering down on Capitol Hill to come up with a deficit-reduction plan that can pass both chambers. 
 
 Graham said if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can get a majority of Republicans to sign on to the final deal in the Democratic-controlled Senate, then the bill has a strong chance in the House. 
 
 "I think you will get a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats in the House, if you can get 60% of the Republicans in the Senate," he said on Fox. 
 
 At issue is disagreement over extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Obama and Democrats say the tax cuts should expire on households making more than $250,000, while Republicans maintain the tax breaks should be continued for all Americans. 
 
 The Senate convenes at 1 p.m. ET Sunday, and the House could hold votes as early as 6:30 p.m. ET 
 
 Graham said he's in favor of getting a deal passed, though he may be holding his nose if that deal includes any sort of tax increases. 
 
 "I want to vote for it, even though I won't like it, because the country has got a lot at stake here," he said.
– President Obama wasn't the only show on the Sunday dial today: On the eve of the fiscal cliff, Lindsey Graham was upbeat about the chances of a deal, telling Fox News they were "exceedingly good." "Hats off to the president," said Graham, according to Politico. "He stood his ground. He's going to get tax rate increases. It will be a political victory for the president." John Barrasso wasn't nearly so positive, saying, "We’re trying to line up a Rubik’s cube right now, and we're not there yet." He blamed Obama for "outsourcing" negotiations to Congress, calling it "a monumental failure of presidential leadership." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Chuck Schumer on the cliff: "I've been a legislator for 37 years, and I've watched how these things work. On these big, big agreements, they almost always happen at the last minute. Neither side likes to give up its position. But then, each side, realizing that the alternative is worse, comes to an agreement. So while an agreement is hardly a certainty, I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this last minute." Dianne Feinstein on gun control: "America has to bite the bullet of what these incidents mean to our people, to our nation and our nation's standing in the world. When you have someone walking in and slaying in the most brutal way, 6-year-olds, something is really wrong." Tom Vilsack on that other (farm bill) 'cliff:' "Consumers are going to be shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 a gallon for milk, they see $7 a gallon for milk. And that’s going to ripple throughout all of the commodities if this thing goes on for an extended period of time."