Tuesday, February 21, 2006


Arthur L. Douglas
Utah Farmers Union

Art is from Box Elder County. I first met Art and Jan Douglas last spring. Art keeps me up to date on Rural Utah. Art is an admired friend and colleague. I appreciate his council.



Art believes that parity (an equivalence between farmers' current purchasing power and their purchasing power at a selected base period maintained by government support of agricultural commodity prices) is a big problem for the farmer, a problem that is being ignored. Being from a small community Art is also concerned with the removal of the sales tax on food. He is concerned about how small communities that depend on this revenue will be compensated.

"UFU policy states we support the present tax on food. This is primarily because of the potential negative impact to rural communities from the loss of sales tax revenue as well as the potential shift of tax losses to the business community which could impact current exemptions that agriculture benefits from."

I agreed to meet Art for lunch and ran off to the House Democratic Caucus office.

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