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Providing daily news in the Northern Granite State since 1889 and nation wide since 1911 - 1 Dollar- 9th of January 2023
Arguments and scandals in Congress as future of farm subsidies discussed
Voting and discussions in Congress have stalled as the subject of farm subsidies have taken over all all discourse on the 2024-2025 budget. President Brad Ross has been calling for the end to farming subsidies, running on a pro-business and efficientization speech in the 2022 elections, and calling for a reduction of the deficit and for the development of business that is profitable and independent from the government. As a response so it, Henry Hayes, senator of the State of Owyhee, called for the protection of Natalian agriculture against foreign big producers which have the advantages of better climate, more fertile land and more agricultural territory, which would flood the local market.
The agricultural sector of Natal has been divided by an extremely profitable livestock and the less profitable plant growing sector. The ranch dominated area is situated along the north-western prairies between the slopes of the Granite Mountains and the city of Moorehead, while the plantations are mostly found in the coastal south. Even so, the sandy soil has been problematic as the plantations need many fertilizers to make it nutritious for agriculture, and as oil and gas prices have gone up, fertilizer prices have increased too, with a record breaking number farmers requesting subsidies to purchase the necessary fertilizers.
The National Party (Grizzlies), has long time been a very close party to the coastal and agricultural areas, but as the capital city, situated in the Northern Granite mountains have attracted more and more businesses, and it became from a small town that was a stop in the Natal Pass (after which the nation was named) linking the coast to Moorehead and the lakes, into the 2nd biggest and richest city in the country, the party suffered a change and became more business, attracting the support of the much more pro-business and little government voters of the mountains and Colter, becoming thus the party of the industrial interior. On the other side, the Farmer-Labour Party (Bisons) have originally been a socially conservative party which used to represent the ranchers on the Prairie, but as the coast was slowly abandoned by the Grizzlies, they have moved up into a more liberal position to attract the voters on the coast and Cedar City, becoming now a liberal to social-democratic party. The change in party identity has taken place in the early 1970s, but there are still even today, many remnants of the original party positions, all depending on local politics.
The chairman of the Bisons, Henry Hayes, has held an 8 hour long speech yesterday to block the vote of anything else in Congress, until the bill to reduce farm subsidies pushed forward by President Brad Ross (Grizzly) is being retracted. In his speeches, many which have been repetitive, something that even Hayes himself owned, the Owyhee senator went as far as to proclaim the annihilation of Natalian agriculture, should the Grizzly policy go forward and reduce subsidies, taking into account the geographic and agricultural issues that already make the sector to be problematic in Natal, and makes profitability hard even in good years, let alone when the global situation brought for more than a year high oil and gas prices, even if in the past weeks, the prices have been slowly going down.
"Apocalyptic rhetoric is unnecessary and puts us in a false dichotomy. It is necessary to reduce spending, and that is a reality. The Bisons are pushing what I call a fake paradigm by stating that we plan to cut all subsidies, but rather, what we want is to bring them down and ensure that gradually, there is a shift from dependence from the state into a profitable agricultural culture and a change of cultivars that will bring us the same efficiency, but without pushing the state into deficit. I understand the issue and I always respected Natalian workers and taxpayers, but sometimes, we need to take actions on what is seen as unpopular by the loud few and supported by the silent majority. Agricultural subsidies have created, especially on the coast, a class of planters that get rich as their businesses have very little real expenditures as they are paid not by them but by all of us, and I'm pretty sure that when some of the riches companies in this country are actually propped by the workers in the mountains and in the prairies, I cannot be okay with it. It is not pro-business, it is just unfair," stated President Brad Ross.
OTHER NEWS
MOOREHEAD MAN SHOT BY POLICE IN BOTCHED ROBBERY: A man in Moorehead has been shot by the police in a botched attempted robbery of a casino. The man, a lone wolf, came into the small casino threatening the customers and the workers, asking for the money from the seif, but the quick response from the police led to a shootout and the aggressor was shot. He is currently in the hospital out of any danger, but has been accused of armed robbery, assault and attempts on human life, and is expected to gain at least 10 years of imprisonment.
THE WESTERNMAN SET TO RIDE AGAIN: The Westernman, Natal's and the Federation's flagship train service is set to run again after a three year break. The train leaves the Implarian Coast, from Natal's biggest city, Cedar City, it crosses the Granites through the Natal Pass and Colter, and then after Moorehead it enters the Federation, crossing its prairies until it reaches Charleroi and then, their biggest city on the coast of the Thaumantic, Baldwin-Whitehall. The nearly 3,200 mile trip will take about 75 hours and will be seen by many more as a vacation in itself, rather than used specially for travel between cities. The train will leave three times a week from its terminus stations.