An effort to rescue a failing industry that provides us with one of our basic food groups hits a wall in the state senate because the proposed solution is an unpopular issue this year.

We live in a milk deficit state. Missouri’s dairy industry is in decline The sponsor of a proposed rescue bill says Missouri’s industry is going down the toilet–his description. He says the average dairy farmer loses about four-dollars a day per cow.

Senator Frank Barnitz proposes a tax credit program that has rescued the dairy industry in other states. He tells the Senate, "We are shipping in 100 truck loads of milk a day to fulfill the needs of…our people. As we lose these dairy producers at the rate that we have seen in the last five years we are soon to lose the entire infrastructure of our milk handling facilities. Once the facilities have been lost there is no need to have dairies in the state." He says that means loss of thousands of jobs.

But this is the legislative session in which the phrase "tax credit" triggers instant negative reactions. Barnitz already has hit that issue and he has set his bill aside.

The bill is SB254

 

 

Upload senate debate (22:09 mp3)