Speech Against NAIS
Below are remarks that were made last night by Congressman John Duncan (Tenn.) on the House floor in support of Congressman Ron Paul's (Texas) amendment to stop the National Animal Identification System or NAIS...
Mr. Speaker:
I rise in strong support today of the gentleman's amendment in opposition to the National Animal Identification System.
Two Tennessee legislators who also represent parts of my District, State Representative Frank Niceley and my own State Senator Tim Burchett, have introduced a bill to prohibit the use of state funds to implement this program in Tennessee.
As Rep. Niceley told the Knoxville News Sentinel, "I think this thing had more to do with the selling of chips than anything else."
He said: "I just get tired of businesses going to Washington and selling their business plan up there and getting rich off the public."
The people pushing this are international and national bureaucrats, who want more power and control, their academic supporters, and especially a very few agri-giant businesses.
Small and medium-sized farmers don't want it.
Ron Freeman, a fifth generation cattleman said, "NAIS will not prevent or control disease. Instead it will allow the government and big business to control our food supply and intrude into the lives of every farmer and rancher."
Judith McGeary, a Texas lawyer, described the program as "one of the most far-reaching acts of surveillance of the most wholesome activities of U.S. citizens. Children with 4-H pet goats, senior citizens raising food for themselves, friends going on trail rides, would all be forced to endure the warrant less government surveillance."
If this isn't Big Brother government, I don't know what is.
This system isn't traditional conservatism.
Costs of new programs such as this are always low-balled on the front end.
The President of the Australian Cattlemen's Association called this program "the single worst thing to ever hit the farming industry in Australia."
He said they were promised it would only cost $3 a head but costs were already running $37 a head, counting cost of scanners and various indirect costs.
A family in Roane County, Tennessee, Everett Phillips had only eight beef cattle, a milk cow, some chickens and a few barnyard animals. Add up the cost, inconvenient federal bureaucracy and privacy concerns, and "it's going to hurt the farmer."
He said he'd consider selling out and moving to Argentina.
If this is still a free country we should at least make the program voluntary instead of mandatory.
http://www.moreliberty.org/more_liberty/2006/05/speech_against_.html
