Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 26, 1993 TAG: 9302260486
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN CONGRESS
UH-OH! President Clinton's economic plan may be in a lot more trouble than folks might guess.It's not enough that passage depends on thousands of people calling their senators and representatives to beg that taxes be raised. Now, it's clear, citizens must also be willing to suffer venomous apian assaults. Are we willing to endure this much pain?
Among Clinton's proposed spending cuts is a $12 million subsidy for American beekeepers. Word of it was barely out when lobbyists made a beeline for the Hill to warn of grave dangers if that honey pot is touched.
Said a spokesman for the American Beekeeping Federation: "The worst thing that could happen is for there to be a void of the domestic, desirable bees. It leaves all the nectar and pollen available" - and you know what that means:
Rampant attacks by killer bees from Brazil!
As Newsday columnist Gail Collins explains, the beekeeping lobby - in its campaign to protect the subsidy - is using every argument ever made in justification of federal spending for a special interest.
The lobby: "Honeybee pollination adds $9.7 billion in values to 40 major crops. The federal income tax on this amount alone would amount to over $2 billion."
Collins: This spending really is a savings.
The lobby: "Many U.S. beekeepers are in serious financial straits. Their costs of operation have been driven up by the invasions of parasitic mites . . . "
Collins: This is the worst possible time to think about cutbacks.
The lobby: "Government stocks of honey have dwindled to nothing."
Collins: National security is involved.
The lobby: "Beekeepers add a sizable sum to the national income - mostly in hard-hit areas."
Collins: Killing this program will cost jobs, jobs, jobs.
The lobby: "Already we are seeing calls for persons with honey-producing expertise to help develop beekeeping enterprises in the former Soviet Union."
Collins: Cutting this program will be good news for foreign competitors.
As if all that weren't bad enough, the American Honey Producers Association says - with no fudging around - that if the subsidy is cut, the price of almonds will soar due to rising costs for tree pollination. That goes right to the sweet tooth of chocolate-bar lovers everywhere.
The beekeepers, of course, are not the only ones swarming to protect programs of federal largess. But, as the president keeps reminding us, to get at the deficit monster and get the economy on track, business as usual in Congress has got to end.
Eliminating the booty for beekeepers, and many other special interests, won't send the planet spinning out of control or let loose a plague of killer bees upon the land.
Put a bee in Congress' bonnet: Just get on with it.