count remay not go off the dairy cliff. they have agreed to a one year extension to the fire bill. price of milk could have gone up to 8a gallon. it is five, four, three, 2, one. and as you toast your way in 2013. you don t want to start off the year with a massive hang over. we have pamella here. she knows all well. they will start to drink early this afternoon it is it things
well, yeah. that is about to happen. exactly. i think if we don t hear something by 2:00 this afternoon it is nail biting time and time to put on the parachutes and prepare to jump the cliff. beyond that it would be very difficult for the senate to get something done tonight and send it over to the house to get it started. you know, congressman soon to be senator flake lays out the complicated path forward here for members of both parties very well. he is concerned about the sequester. ah, but we can fix that later. he doesn t want to extend the farm bill that would stave off those milk prices but, you know, the farm state, lawmakers have been saying you can t extend these things temporarily. if you re going to do it for milk you might as well do it for everything else. to think we re down to 14 hours, maybe, you know, 34 hours if you count tomorrow, and they still haven t started up these incredibly complicated things it is a great demonstration of the fact this place remains so dea
the lower temperatures getting cold near 28 degrees. it looks lie a chilly new year s each. 33 degrees there by the time we get into the new year. it wouldn t be any fun if it wasn t a little cold in times square for new year s eve. huddle up, get close to one another. you can t do anything else. they ll be huddling all right. thank you very much. the top political stories from the big written to then forget at moments we re also headed for the dairy cliff. seema mody has more. let s start with the farm bill. absolutely, richard, the agricultural farm bill is set to expire at the end of this bill. right now the average price is
to gain by going over the cliff in that s what our next guest points out, where he says that many of them have calculated it is better to go over the cliff, at least temporarily, than swallow a raw deal. with me is jonathan allen. it s good to have you here. break it down for us. what s in it for both sides? i think what is at work here is going over the fiscal cliff is a better option than the worst-scale snare i don t. it matt not be the optimal snare i don t, but for republicans, they would have an tune to vote for tack cuts. they also may figure they ll have an opportunity to negotiate for other items. they don t want to cave for president obama. on the democratic side, they re winning the public relations war on this.
double? within the new year? it could. you say milk cliff or dairy cliff, it s easy to chuckle, but it is a serious topic. milk is a staple in every household. it has to do with the 1949 farm yes, 1949 farm bill that was passed that basically protected farmers against sudden spikes in the cost of grain, sort of capped their costs. you say, well, grain, of course you feed your dairy cattle grain and feed. if they don t have that insurance on feed costs, then obviously their feed costs will spike, they re not going to go out of business. they re not going to lose money. they re going to pass it on. so there is talk out there if this farm bill is not extended as part of this or a separate deal, that farmers will be able to charge what they want. that could lead to milk even more than doubling. it s about 3.50 to 3.75