Motive for H.R. 1003

In spite of the current government shutdown, let's continue to look at H.R. 1003 to try to understand what makes Congress tick. What is the motive for Congressman Michael Conaway [R-TX11] to put forth sponsorship for this bill? Let's take a look at his him home state of Texas. The number of farms in Texas has decreased from 420,000 in 1940 to 244,700 in 2012. Over the past 70 years, agriculture in Texas has become more specialized, more expensive, and more business oriented than times of the past. Farms and ranches are bigger, and the stakes are higher that they hit their target crop outputs every year. H.R. 1003 would insert more regulation into the process of creating laws that govern agriculture. Theoretically, it would make it more difficult to pass legislation (through a series of mandatory analyses by the Office of the Chief Economist), which could cause lasting negative economic impacts to the agriculture industry. Does our government need this additional layer of red tape to keep its Agriculture legislation in check? This is an example of a piece of legislation that attempts to reduce government restrictions by increasing government involvement in the process. Funny how government works.

My next posts will start looking at the legislative process from a higher level as I attempt to characterize how the sum of our Congressional action leads to government spending and hopefully benefits to United States citizens. The website GovTrack.us will be key to this effort as I plan to use their database of legislation to objectively hold individual Congressman accountable for their actions.