John Block Reports from Washington

I'm sitting here right now thinking about this year -- 2005. What will the Congress and President Bush be able to get done? I get a little bit concerned that the President's ambitious agenda may over shadow the many smaller problems that need to be dealt with.

The war, Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, are a huge drain of resources and energy. We don't have any choice. We have to see the process through to the end.

Social Security reform is where President Bush has been spending the lions' share of his time -- flying from state-to-state building support and understanding. I think he is right. I like the idea of personal savings accounts and we need to address the problem.

Add on top of all of that, the 1,000 pound gorilla is a deficit that ties our hands whenever we reach to do anything. At the same time, there are other problems that need our attention. We want the Congress to either do away with the death tax or raise the exemption to a level that would protect family businesses. A raise to $10 or $20 million would not be unreasonable.

The mandatory Country of Origin Labeling law needs to be made voluntary. The Farm Bureau now supports the voluntary approach for meats. Why not produce also? I don't know.

We have a huge back log of serious trade disputes. By imposing a tax on corn sweetener, Mexico has slammed the door on us. Japan still will not accept our beef and we don't accept Canadian beef. Although, we say it will be opened to animals under 30 month of age. How can we expect the Japanese to open their doors while we keep ours closed to Canada? On top of all of this, we still don't have a U.S. Trade Ambassador to replace Robert Zoellick. Senator Grassley is backing Allen Johnson, our chief agriculture negotiator. And, I do too. Allen Johnson knows the agriculture issues and can hit the ground running.

We're in for a busy year. A lot to do.

Until next week, I am John Block from Washington.