Rogers speaks at local agriculture meeting

By Laura Johnson | Alex City Outlook

Published Friday, November 13, 2009

Republican Congressman Mike Rogers met with his agricultural advisory council at Lamoureux’s Place in Kellyton Friday, but the conversation was about a lot more than farming.

The meeting was an annual gathering of agricultural representatives from each county across the third district, which he represents. Rogers and the council briefly discussed a few select agricultural issues, but the discussion centered on the health care debate and Washington politics.

“I watch the way he votes and I watch the way the other six representatives in Alabama vote,” John Neighbors, a local farmer, said. “His philosophy is about the same as mine.”

Rogers spoke to the council for about an hour at the morning meeting. He began with talk about the health care bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives and the chances that a similar bill would pass in the Senate.

“The leadership really wants universal health care, but they know they can’t sell that, so they are saying they want a public option,” Rogers said. “I feel that they are going to have a hard time getting the bill through the Senate, but I don’t underestimate them.”

If the bill becomes law, it would require small business owners and farmers to provide each employee with health insurance. Neighbors said that expense, coupled with rising energy costs, could be too much for the small farms across the area.

“We are small businesses. We are in it to make a profit and if we don’t, there is no reason to be in it,” Neighbors said. “A lot of these things that the Congress is trying to get passed right now will not benefit the community.”

Lamar and Felicia Dewberry came to the meeting from Clay County, where they own a tree farm. They wanted to discuss a bill that would exempt family farms from paying an inheritance tax and never got around to it because of the health care debate, but said they still came away with valuable information.

“I think right now there are bigger concerns than agricultural issues,” Lamar Dewberry said.

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