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Audio Transcript

Todd Kuethe: Welcome to the Purdue Commercial Ag Cast. I’m Todd Kuethe. I’m a professor in the department. I’m joined by

Chad Fiechter: Chad Fiechter.

Todd Kuethe: We’ve got a slightly different sort of series of podcasts we’re gonna release within our feed. This is gonna be something new. Our listeners, we’ll be familiar mostly as a way that we deliver news, and information from the Center. A lot of it related to the, Ag Econ Barometer, but then also other sort of pieces of information that the Center collects and research people affiliate with the Center. But ours will be a little bit different bend. And then I feel a lot like, uh, when Jay Leno finally got the desk at, uh, right where it was like, you’ve been here enough times, we’ll just let you do it.

Chad Fiechter: Chad, why don’t you introduce yourself for the listeners.

Alright, so, hey everybody, I’m Chad. Um. I grew up in Indiana. Uh, I am now a professor in agricultural economics here, Purdue. But I’m a little old to be a new guy, so I was a farmer for a while near Northeast Indiana.

Todd, who are you?

Todd Kuethe: Um, my name is Todd Kuethe I’m a professor, also in the Department of Agricultural Economics. I mostly study land prices and credit and all those kind of things that we do here, the Center of Commercial Agriculture.

Chad, tell us a little bit about what we’re hoping to do with this podcast.

Chad Fiechter: I used to be a farmer and now I do this job, which is trying to understand the ag economy, and I wanted to do that as a farmer too. But now I have very different conversations with a lot of different people that I genuinely find interesting and insightful. So one of the things that people can’t observe when I come talk to them or they read something that I have written is that it’s likely based on a series of conversations that I’ve had with interesting people. And so my objective in this podcast is to try to understand the ag economy more, but let people sort of into these conversations on a regular basis with people that I think are interesting. How did I do?

Todd Kuethe: I think that’s great. You have sold me, I’m going to hit subscribe on this podcast so that once a month I’ll get to hear this vision that you’re pitching, which is interesting conversations that you are going to have.

Chad Fiechter: Yes.

Todd Kuethe: In an effort to understand the ag economy.

Chad Fiechter: Exactly.

Todd Kuethe: So that’s the idea, right?

Uh, maybe we should tease a little bit for the people listening at home, they want to envision this conversation they’re hearing. What celebrity have people told you you look like, so that way they can think about when they’re hearing your voice, they’re picturing.

Chad Fiechter: Yep. So, when I go to the doctor, for some reason everyone at the doctor’s office tells me I look like Lorenzo Lamas.

Todd Kuethe: But probably a classic vintage Lorenzo Lamas.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. So I don’t think he’s fantastic looking in his sixties, I will say. But I, I’m assuming they’re picturing more like sort of early nineties, Lorenzo.

And Todd, how about you?

Todd Kuethe: So I got this one just really recently. We have somebody who was doing some work at our house and he said to my wife, has anybody told your husband? He looks like, so he was hedging a little bit. Didn’t wanna say it to me. Uh, comedian Tom Seguro. Segura.

I think it’s because I’m bald and have a beard.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Todd Kuethe: Uh, and we’re roughly about the same age. And I’ll take it.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. So I think it’s hair related ’cause I mean most of the com there, Lorenzo Lamas comments he was clearly hair related.

Todd Kuethe: Also dark, long, dark hair.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. So people were picturing two ag economists played by Tom Seguro and a younger Lorenzo Llamas.

All right.

we are joined today by Matt Erickson.

Matt Erickson: Hey everyone. Uh,

Chad Fiechter: esteemed Alum AEs.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Purdue alum. Matt holds two degrees

Matt Erickson: Two degrees.

Todd Kuethe: from our department.

Yeah. so Matt, let’s start by telling us who you are, what you do. Yep. And then, then we’ll dig in from there.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So thank you guys both for having me on. looking forward to this conversation, the dialogue. Matt Erickson, uh, ag Economic and Policy Advisor for Farm Credit Services of America, Frontier Farm Credit and Ag Country Farm, Credit Services. And I’ve been at the role, a little over four years now. And basically what I do in a nutshell is provide economic and policy, analysis and tie it back to, uh, overall producer impact and what that actually means for the associations.

Todd Kuethe: So,

what celebrity do you get told you look like

Matt Erickson: Oh man. I feel like as an Indiana, uh, farm kid that played basketball in high school, I’ve got a, I gotta point back to Larry Bird.

Todd Kuethe: Oh, I’ll take it. I’ll take it.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. I mean, number 33, Celtics, Sycamores, Guy can shoot man.

Todd Kuethe: Foul. Very foul language you usually use. This is perfect.

Matt Erickson: Well, I mean, you know, he drops 30 and I drop three.

Todd Kuethe: There we go.

Matt Erickson: So, I, look at, the, the role of, of basketball in the state and one, a huge basketball guy right here grew up watching Michael Jordan and, Scottie Pippen and the the Bulls. You know, Jordan was my guy. Um, but then, when I was a very young kid, um, it was Bird.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: Um, and so, you know, it can’t be eighties and nineties basketball. And again, I don’t wanna be that old guy that says that, but here we are.

Todd Kuethe: So we are talking to the Larry Bird of farm policy today.

Chad Fiechter: I love that. I, that’s perfect.

Todd Kuethe: All right. So the, one of the reasons we wanted to have you in to have a conversation is that you, before working for Farm Credit, uh, and all the various farm credits, you were on the, the Senate Agriculture Committee. So tell us what your role was there. What was your job title or.

Matt Erickson: Yeah, I was Chief economist, uh, for, for the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry from 2015 to 2021. Um, my boss was Chairman Pat Roberts, former senator from Kansas. And, when he took the gavel, um, that’s when I started on the committee, served there for six years. That role really dealt with the budget and economic analysis of the committee. Basically you kind of put your, your thumbprint on, uh, different areas where the chairman’s priorities are. So, you know, a lot of times you think about the economist’s role, you think of Title one as well as crop insurance.

And it really depends on what the chairman wants the Chief Economist to do. And so my role really was dealing with nutrition and all the other titles of the Farm Bill.

Todd Kuethe: So, and I can’t remember the the titles here, but so you have the chair, which is from the majority

Matt Erickson: That’s right.

Todd Kuethe: party right?

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: And then there will be the, what do they call the…

Matt Erickson: ranking member?

Todd Kuethe: The ranking member who is the senior or lead person from the minority party.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: And did the minority party also have an economics group, or was that just from the chair?

Matt Erickson: Yeah. Generally speaking, both, uh, the, the chairman and the ranking member usually have economists that are on staff.

And you know, the reason being is because one policy is policy and you get into those debates, but oftentimes you wanna find the impact of those policies. And so that’s where the intersection of economics and policy come into play. Um, you know, again, I refer to the easy one, right? Of things like ARC and PLC and crop insurance.

Often times, there’s a policy point there that does some of those different types of policy provisions. If we wanna make changes or not, those things get negotiated through policy, but also, two, the economist’s job is also to help negotiate, but also to, to provide some evidence there of what those policy changes actually mean.

Chad Fiechter: So what is the specific role of the Senate Ag Committee?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so that’s a great question. So,

Todd Kuethe: Great question.

Matt Erickson: the, the role of the Senate Ag Committee is when you think about committees up on the hill, there’s policies, there’s programs, there’s legislation that’s currently in the jurisdiction of the committee.

So for the Senate Ag Committee, which is different from the House Ag Committee jurisdiction, and we can get into that here a little bit more, uh, but on the Senate ag side, you’ve got things like the Farm Bill, which is part of the committee’s jurisdiction. But what separates the house from the Senate, uh, in terms of the Ag Committee structure is on the Senate Ag Committee there’s jurisdiction of child nutrition programs. And so there’s a little more on the plate on the Senate side than there is on the House because there’s probably more committees, over on the House side. But again, there’s some nuances there. Um, that basically where jurisdiction is kind of put in place between the House and the Senate.

Chad Fiechter: Gotcha. So those, like the Farm bill, that’s, that’s, that’s you guys?

Matt Erickson: Yep. That’s the jurisdiction, both the House and the Senate Ag committee.

Chad Fiechter: I see.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Chad Fiechter: So you have to recommend this is what we’re gonna do and then negotiate for that.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So if we, if we walk through the, the process of putting a bill together, you know what, what generally happens is.

When you go back to, to farm, bills have passed and what we did in the ’18 Farm Bill is, you’ve got the, the House that does their work, the House Ag committee that does their work on a farm bill. The Senate does their work on a farm bill. And then what you do during that process is one, you start off the process by getting constituencies on the record. So, you know, folks like Farm Bureau, Corn Grower Soybean Association, uh, the Livestock Group, so on and so forth. And you want to get priorities of, you know, those constituencies, but also those priorities of members that also serve on the committee.

And so you, you put all those things on the, on the record, and then what you do is you come out with the chairman’s mark. And so that chairman’s mark, you debate that. Um, in committee. Once you pass it out of out a committee, then eventually it goes to the Senate floor. Same type of process, a little bit of procedural differences with regard to rules and everything. We won’t get into that.

But kind of same structure there on the House side. Once it gets down to, let’s talk the Senate floor, ’cause that’s what I’m most familiar with, it gets down to the Senate floor, it gets debated. And then once it eventually passes, then it waits for conference committee, if there’s separate issues from the House.

Todd Kuethe: And, and the conference committee is the House and Senate.

Matt Erickson: That’s right.

Todd Kuethe: Both of the same jurisdiction.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: Coming together and say, the House did this, the Senate did this, here’s where there’s overlap.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: Here’s where we would need to figure out the disconnected.

Matt Erickson: So the whole role of conference committee is basically to work out and negotiate the differences between the House passed bill and the Senate passed bill.

Chad Fiechter: Oh, okay. Okay, so let me, let me make a distinction.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: Because you guys are both more familiar with policy than me. There’s a bill gonna be proposed by a legislator that’s they’re really, I don’t know, they hate coffee cups versus this is like, this is something that has to be brought forward, this is part of what we as society have deemed really, really important. Like the farm bill.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Chad Fiechter: And so now you have not only a group of legislators that are responsible to bring this forward.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: Is that, does that make sense?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, I mean it can, so from a procedural standpoint, there one, when you’re putting together a farm bill in each of the, the chambers.

So on the Senate side, what we did was, we would talk to, to actually every member on the Republican side. ‘Cause that’s the, the side I worked, worked for. And basically I wanted to get the priorities of our, of our caucus, of the Republican party. And it, it ranges from a lot, whatever the state constituency of the Senator that he has to serve. For instance, if you’re a Senator from Florida, you may have different priorities than that of, let’s say my senator from from Kansas.

Chad Fiechter: Got it.

Matt Erickson: You know, obviously there’s more citrus grown in Florida. There’s more beef production proteins, more row crops in Kansas.

Todd Kuethe: And, and more people.

Matt Erickson: And more people.

Todd Kuethe: Right? And so there could be a broader

Chad Fiechter: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: set of,

Chad Fiechter: okay.

Matt Erickson: So what you do is you, you work with members, you know, during your process, before you get it to committee. And you do that, and then what you do is you come up with basically a chairman’s mark, um, that, you know, you, you can put in front of the committee. Then that gets debated within committee. And then also too, there could be a, an amendment process down on the, the Senate floor when it gets debated. Um, and there’s a whole nother, you know, procedure there. But yeah, once it gets fully out of the Senate, usually, generally speaking, we can get to some procedure here, um, with today’s current events. But generally speaking of Farm Bill, it’s required on the Senate side to get 60 votes. And so, if you do that then it would go to a conference and conference it with the House.

Then part of that is once those get negotiated, uh, both bills get negotiated out and it gets out of conference. Then it goes to both chambers again. On the Senate side, you’ve gotta get 60 votes. On the house side, you’ve gotta get 218 votes. And then once those two, um, pass, then it goes to the President for signature.

 

Todd Kuethe: So as a faculty member, we also have committees.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And I serve on committees. Right, like the graduate admissions committee or the awards committee. Yeah. Right. Every committee I’ve been on here at this job. And my previous faculty jobs. It’s a mix of, some people love to be on that committee and it’s their passion to be on that committee.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And they care about it. And then some people, it’s like, well, you’ve gotta be on some committees we’re gonna put you on committees.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: Mm-hmm.

Todd Kuethe: And then you have a couple people who are sort of adversarial to the committee and they’re like, I don’t want to be on any committees.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Is it the same in the Senate, do you think? Where there’s like, do you think that there are people

Chad Fiechter: Wait because potentially everybody has to be on a committee?

Todd Kuethe: Well, I don’t know if you have to be. Do you have to be?

Matt Erickson: Well, there’s, there’s a process in terms of committee priority that each member gets to select, and that’s up to the caucus. The majority leader has a lot of influence in that.

Chad Fiechter: Interesting.

Matt Erickson: Um, with, with that selection process.

Todd Kuethe: Well, and they are sort of, the student council presidents sit in the front row of class kind of people. Yeah. That go to Senate. Right. So they’re like, they’re probably all itching to be on every committee and they’re probably on their PTO at home and all the, like, they’re just committee people.

Chad Fiechter: Well, I’m just thinking about

Todd Kuethe: Right. Like this is a non-random draw of people.

Chad Fiechter: Fetterman, like he,

Matt Erickson: Senator Fetterman. Yeah, from Pennsylvania.

Chad Fiechter: So he, he strikes me as like, do you think he wants to be on committees?

Todd Kuethe: Oh. He’s,

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So, so each, each, each member will serve on a committee and or multiple committees.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Um, and so,

Todd Kuethe: But he, he strikes me as a dude that’s like, oh, I’m coaching this softball team no matter what. I’ll be here even after my kid leave. He seemed like a committee guy, but not a committee guy and like a suit and tie but there’s committee people.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. Okay.

Todd Kuethe: He seemed like a committee person.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Todd Kuethe: Even if he doesn’t look like the, like I, I think everybody is on a committee. Uh, ’cause they want to be,

Chad Fiechter: I’m picturing someone who wears the same things that he wears and in my case, those are normally adversarial to committees.

Todd Kuethe: Yes. Unless you’re at a like neighborhood, planning out the what the softball league, who gets what field with

Chad Fiechter: No, I agree.

Todd Kuethe: And then the dudes that look like Fetterman are like causing an issue and calling out procedure.

Chad Fiechter: Okay. Alright.

Todd Kuethe: I’m just saying think about all of the committee. There’s a lot of committees.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah, I’m on board.

Todd Kuethe: What I’m just wondering is, are there some people that are like, yeah, I’m on the Senate Ag Committee and like that’s not the one I care about. I care about being on this other committee that I’m on. So you’re also like trying to convince ’em? Or is it all to just like, ’cause

Matt Erickson: Well, and I, I think it’s put it into perspective of what the priority is for the member. And so if you think about it a lot of members that I I served, on the committee with, on the Republican side. ‘Cause yeah, my boss was the chairman. But also two I also needed to brief and update other Republican members that were on the committee. And so when you think about some of those members, you know, I think it really comes down to which state each member is in. So for instance, you know, a lot of the folks that worked for the Republican side when I was up on the hill. Um, a lot of row crop focus. Um, a lot of traditional ag focus, a lot of it was serving the, the producers that were in their state. You look at a lot of members maybe on the other side of the aisle, um, where their specific priority is nutrition.

And so that’s why this, this partnership between the, the rural and urban partnership here is really important for it to stick together

Todd Kuethe: Well, and, and you, and you talk about briefing the other committee members, but you also are interacting with not just the committee member themselves, but potentially their staff, right?

Matt Erickson: That’s right.

Todd Kuethe: ‘Cause they also will have people that work for them that help manage their portfolio of interests and experiences or, or, uh, obligations, right?

Chad Fiechter: Mm-hmm.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So you look at a chairman of a committee, chairman have committee staff, like I was on, you know, your focus up there is to do ag policy. Um, or policy again, that’s in your jurisdiction. So, you know, we tried to do nutrition reauthorization, however that got held up. But then you look at, let’s say the ’18 farm bill process, for us the, the whole focus and why you’re up on a committee is to do specific, specific policy.

Um, you’re supposed to be the experts within the field, with, within agriculture. But then also too, like each member that we worked with had their own personal office, and so they had a specific, you know, maybe one or two, like LA’s or an uh, or excuse me, legislative assistant.

Todd Kuethe: There we go. There we go.

Matt Erickson: There we go. Using my DC acronyms.

Todd Kuethe: No, no. I like it. That’s it. This is the kind of inside baseball

Chad Fiechter: It is.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah, we’re right here.

Matt Erickson: Well, you know,

Todd Kuethe: LA’s

Matt Erickson: some, some LA’s, legislative assistants, they may have, let’s say a legislative correspondent that may be a little bit junior, but works on ag issues. And they would represent that member that’s, that’s on the committee or let’s say, just represent the member in totality. Um, so, you know, working with them, understanding their priorities. A lot of our job too on the committee is to, to work directly with those, with those legislative assistants or, you know, whoever it is in the, the personal office.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. Okay.

How many people is the staff of the Senate Ag Committee versus how many people are on the private staff of the committee member?

Matt Erickson: It depends on,so staff makeup is really dependent upon the numbers that, that are made up of, of, of the Senate. So for instance, if you have, let’s say, a 50 50 Senate. Staff on the Senate side, is it, it would be cut in half. So it’s proportionally divided, uh, between the seats that are made up of the hundred senators. So when we had the majority with Chairman Roberts, we had a slight majority, um, you know, I think we were like 53 to to 47. I could be wrong on that, but it’s somewhere in that nature during the, the ’18 farm bill process, but we had, we had more staff than the, our counterparts on the, the ranking member side. So again, uh, the House works a little bit differently, uh, but on the Senate side it’s, it’s really divided proportionally.

Todd Kuethe: Well, and then I was gonna ask a similar question, which is, so you’re an economist working for them. But what are some of the other people that work for the committee? There’s, I know that there’s attorneys for sure.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: What, what are like, what are those other roles?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so generally speaking on committees, one, you have a staff director, uh, that manages the staff on the committee. If you look at a staff director’s job is one, it’s to, to manage the committee. It’s also to find votes, in terms of any key piece of legislation, uh, that, that we had to deal with. You also have counsel, uh, multiple counsel that are on the committee. So you think of their jobs a lot is, I mean, like any lawyer, they give legal advice, but they also do the drafting of, of titles.

Chad Fiechter: Sure.

Matt Erickson: They write the language. They also work with what we call Senate Ledge Council, um, which is not part of the committee, but I kind of viewed them as consultants of the committee. And they also work with other committee members if they have legislation to draft. They also, like if you’re in the personal office and you want an amendment to be, um, a part of any part of the legislation, Senate Ledge Council would help draft that. So you’ve got a legal staff. And then also you have policy staff. So those would be folks like your, uh, professional staff, senior professional staff that really have a portfolio of policies that are in place. So you may have someone that works on, you know, commodities, crop insurance, dairy, that works specifically on those issues.

So like another person may work on trade, food aid, all, all sorts of those policy issues. And then one that may work on nutrition because nutrition’s just so massive.

Chad Fiechter: Sure.

Matt Erickson: When you think of that legislation. So then you’ve got my role as chief economist. I help with the, the policy analysis, the economic analysis for the committee. A lot of my time is also spent on the budget side. Uh, when you think about a policy change, there could be a cost or a savings to it. And so when you think about working with the Congressional Budget Office, a lot of times you’re a liaison. There we’re not only a liaison of them doing the analysis, but also too, you have to do your own analysis for the committee because CBO can get backed up, um, with their work. Um, then you’ve got a press staff and, and that kind of makes up the,

Todd Kuethe: So if you guys were all together, about how many people in the room? I’m kind of curious.

Matt Erickson: Oh, I would say we had probably close to 20 staff.

Todd Kuethe: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Um, yeah, when you think about, you know, some of our legislative correspondence and legislative assistance and, all the legal staff and, and that’s separate than, you know, the, the chairman’s personal office?

Todd Kuethe: Yeah, yeah.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. How many people in like a personal office?

Matt Erickson: Well, it depends on seniority a lot of times. Um, but there’s, there’s quite a few people. The role of what Chairman Roberts, he was a senior member from Kansas and, pretty, high up in seniority on the Senate side.

You know, he would have multiple staff working on different issues, whether it be healthcare, armed services.

Chad Fiechter: Sure.

Matt Erickson: Um, some of those other issues. Kind of a differentiator here is when you look at the chairman’s staff, his personal office staff, he did have an ag legislative assistant that dealt with ag issues. And what was so nice about it is there’s always that relationship between the committee or the chairman’s committee staff with the chairman’s personal office staff. And a lot of times the, the competitive advantage for us was, we had a really good ag LA, uh, or legislative assistant. Where his job was basically to be a part of the committee staff and help with policy, but also connect us with constituents from Kansas.

Chad Fiechter: Sure. Okay. Cool.

Matt Erickson: And so that was a huge benefit for committee staff to have.

Todd Kuethe: Well, I was gonna say the other thing is having friends that have worked in similar roles for senators, there’s often like a home office as well, so they’ll have a presence in their home state that they don’t really come to DC too much.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah. Okay.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And the DC people don’t go out to that state too much. In fact, a friend of mine took a job working for a committee that was chaired by, uh, uh, I can’t remember where the guy was from, but he was like, oh, now you can finally go to some football games. Like, uh, like, like at Ole Miss or LSU or whatever it was, right.

Matt Erickson: In the chairman’s personal office. He had his own chief of staff. Um,

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Matt Erickson: His own legislative director. Um, and so a lot of times you would have to, you work hand in hand. Right? And so, you know, making sure that the committee staff is aligned with personal office staff, you know, there’s communication’s always key everywhere. Even in the private sector where I work at now, um, there it’s no different.

Chad Fiechter: Mm-hmm.

Todd Kuethe: Well, the other thing that, so I started my career in DC I have a lot of friends that worked in various roles in DC. The other thing that kind of always I think is sort of misunderstood about DC in general is these people are also elected, right? So they are always running for elections. Right. But that’s often handled by a separate group, right?

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: They’re sort of electoral part of it. They’re running campaigns, um,

Chad Fiechter: Big election.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. And, and, and surprisingly, it seems like most people either spend their career sort of on the hill. As a wonk of various types and floating around, you know, maybe you’ll work for a member and then you’ll go work for a committee and you’ll be, you know, an LC to work your way up to LA or whatever. But those people rarely ever work on the electoral side or the election campaign side.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: That’s like a different animal. And like when I’d go to a bar in DC there’d be like, oh, this is like the Wonk Hill bar. And then be like, oh, this is like the campaign bar.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And it was like people were sort of divided by those camps more than political ideology.

Matt Erickson: Right.

Todd Kuethe: So like you’d have like Democrats and Republicans that both work on campaigns. Yeah. They would commiserate a bunch.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: But then if like somebody from their own party was like a hill staffer came in, they’d be like, we’re not talking to that guy. That dude’s a nerd.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Or whatever.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Anyway, I, I, that, that always sort of fascinates me, these two different worlds. So, we work a lot with students obviously.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Uh, and I get bright students all the time come to me and say like, I’m getting a degree in Ag Econ, but I wanna go to law school ’cause I wanna work in policy.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And you’ve worked in policy, but you never went to law school. So tell us a little bit about sort of what you did before the Senator. How? The path to getting that job. Like what sort of things you did or

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Or skills you picked up.

Chad Fiechter: In specifics of like, how did you become aware that there was a position that you were interested in?

Todd Kuethe: Yeah, yeah.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: How’d you even know that this job existed?

Chad Fiechter: Yeah, exactly.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So, you know, I would, I would tell you my career um, it’s, it’s a unique one in of itself. And, you know, one,

Todd Kuethe: Oh, yeah.

Matt Erickson: So did the, did the application. All of a sudden I was mowing the yard at the, the farm up in Brookston and got a call. Long story short, got the internship between my, um, actually I deferred the beginning of my sophomore year.

Chad Fiechter: Um, really?

Matt Erickson: ‘Cause I was out in DC during that time. So remember back, let’s see, I was with the National Economic Council with my first internship. So that was during, Hurricane Katrina.

Todd Kuethe: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Erickson: During those times, that was when, Chief Justice John Roberts was going through his, confirmation process. I would tell any student, if you want to go look at how to testify in front of Congress, it’s him. Because it was just phenomenal on, how he testified in his communication skills there. So after that internship, worked directly on issues relating to Hurricane Katrina, Port of New Orleans issues with product going to and from, on or for agriculture.

Then decided, the, the best advice I got was if you’re interested doing a White House policy internship, if you want to get in the, the nuts and bolts of policy, you need to go up to the Hill. And so, my next step was I did an internship for, Senator Dick Lugar.

Todd Kuethe: Oh, yeah.

 

Matt Erickson: Uh, here from, from Indiana. Did that for a summer. And I would tell any student that if you really wanna work into policy, go do an internship on the Hill. Because you’re gonna do every job from answering mail. You’re gonna do committee work. If you do work for a senator that is in charge of a committee.

Todd Kuethe: Lead tours.

Matt Erickson: Yeah, lead tours. Um, and the, the thing is, if you don’t like constituent work, then policy’s not for you. Because the whole basis of policy and where policy needs to be driven is the grassroots and it’s from the constituent. No ifs, ands, or buts.

So I enjoyed it. I was kind of one of those policy wonks and nerds that really liked it.

 

Chad Fiechter: I’m assuming, uh, Senator Luger had postings for interns and you applied to one of those.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: You knew you knew to go look and you applied to one of those.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. Generally speaking, every member, um, you know, on their website will have internships and applications and more information there. So.

Chad Fiechter: Sweet.

Matt Erickson: Yep. it’s pretty easy to get to for, I would say for the large majority of members because they want those constituents to, to come and, and work or college students to work during the summer.

Todd Kuethe: And I assume they have sort of goals and the kind of person they would want, right? So like,

Matt Erickson: Oh, sure.

Todd Kuethe: Like Lugar probably enjoyed that you were a kid that went to an Indiana public school and from Indiana and worked on a, grew up on a farm and like

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: You kind of fit that sort of role of his constituency. Right?

Matt Erickson: Yeah. And another piece of advice I give to students is, a lot of times these internships require letters of recommendation. And, you know, I, my advice would be don’t go to the glitz and glam of someone that may have name recognition but doesn’t know you as a person. When I did the White House internship and when I got selected, basically I had really good, I had really good people. They were in pretty good positions, but they also knew me as a person.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: Um, I’ll be really clear in terms of who my letters of recommendation were. Dr. Dooley was my advisor first semester here at Purdue. He was one letter of recommendation I got. My minister back up in Brookston. He’s now retired, but one of my mentors. He gave a really good letter of recommendation and then also my state rep, who was Don Lehe at the time, which family friends, and me and his son went to, went to high school together. So,

Todd Kuethe: Oh, nice.

Matt Erickson: So those people knew me as a person and gave good letters or recommendations. So I would say like it’s, you know, decide whatever you wanna do, but really go after people that know you.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Um, okay, so

you were a student here, did some internships.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: Then you finished that degree. Uh, and then you stayed on for a master’s degree, correct?

Matt Erickson: Well, there’s a, there’s a little,

Todd Kuethe: or did you have a gap there?

Matt Erickson: There’s a little gap.

Todd Kuethe: Okay.

Matt Erickson: So, I did apply between my bachelor’s and master’s and I got accepted, um, you know, going from Purdue to Purdue, um, and Ag econ to Ag econ. So then I had the opportunity to stay on as a political, at USDA for president George W. Bush. So I worked at USDA, um, during that time, and then decided to come back to Purdue and, um, get my masters. So there was a little brief stint where the Potomac Fever wore off, but went back.

Todd Kuethe: Played enough kickball.

 

Matt Erickson: Played enough kickball.

Todd Kuethe: What was the po, what’s a political.

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so a political appointee. You work for the president.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Um, and so each agency has political staff that work on behalf of the president.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. So there’s careers. And there’s political. So like I had a career position when I worked for the USDA, which meant my job was irrespective of the party, that’s the executive.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Todd Kuethe: Right. I had sort of just regular tasks. I had to do reports and things. Right. Uh, but it, it was not directly tied to the initiatives of that, of that executive.

Chad Fiechter: So, but then what did you do in that role? What’s the political do?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so when I was there, I worked for Rural Development during the time and really focused on the energy title in the the 2008 farm bill. So hard to believe that we’re in 2025 and I’m talking about the 2008 Farm bill.

Chad Fiechter: But so really like still though analysis, like economic analysis related to energy in rural spaces.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. Well it wasn’t necessarily economic analysis for that job. It was more of meeting with, you know, industry in terms of,

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Now remember the, the ’08 farm bill, so when I was at USDA, I was an intern during ’08.. Um, and I’ve gotta get my, my timeline here straight. But then, you know, after I was an intern and well, and then graduated Purdue, then I worked as a political. So did that for, for a little bit. And so remember back in the ’08 Farm Bill, that was during the whole ethanol boom.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: You know, ethanol was the, the, the thing, you know, infrastructure, energy programs, um, all those things. And, and Title IX, uh, energy was a really, really big, uh, topic at USDA during that time.

Todd Kuethe: So then you finished at Purdue for a second time with your master’s degree?

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: And then you went to work for?

Matt Erickson: Uh, then I went out to DC again. I worked for American Farm Bureau Federation.

Todd Kuethe: Okay. So you

Matt Erickson: As an economist.

Todd Kuethe: So you worked for the keeping track here. In your past, you’ve done sort of White House on the Hill.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: And then now at this stage. You are working for a, uh, producer organization that does sort of communicates membership objectives to policy makers, right?

Matt Erickson: That’s right. And so American Farm Bureau’s the largest national farm organization in the country. But I would put a plug here during my master’s ’cause I, I wanna say this ’cause I spent two years of my life.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Oh, yeah no, no.

Matt Erickson: It’s writing a thesis, but. So my, my major professor and mentor was former late Wally Tyner.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Matt Erickson: And so really learned a ton from him. Um, corn cobs were my life for two years, so I analyzed corn cobs for biofuel production. Uh, the Indiana Corn Marketing Council, uh, funded the study. Um, so did that and um, really got some good exposure as it relates to doing extension work, because who wants to read 120 page thesis?

Todd Kuethe: Well, and

Matt Erickson: Not really. No one.

Todd Kuethe: And Wally is a perfect fit in terms of he studied energy.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: It’s relationship to agriculture.

Matt Erickson: Huge.

Todd Kuethe: And did really good scientific research, right. He was a fellow of our association and stuff, but also communicated out a lot to policymakers and groups like Farm Bureau I’m sure would, you know, call Wally if they had a question about something.

Matt Erickson: Well, and you know, you look at what he, he wanted me to do and you know, basically it was, yeah, you’ve gotta do the thesis in order to graduate, but you’re not gonna leave here unless you do an extension publication because your constituent here at Purdue and ag econ is part of the land grant mission is the Indiana farmer. And that was really obviously growing up on a fifth generation farm just 30 minutes north here. And then, growing up as a kid, you know, around these, these halls in, in ag econ, so my Uncle Steve taught here back in the day in finance. But it was always instilled that what you’re producing here. Yeah, you’re getting a graduate degree, but you’re also doing something that’s beneficial for, for farmers in the research that you do.

So you know that mentorship and that ability to basically say your role as an economist. Yeah. I mean, you can put up the alphas, the betas, and whatever regression equation you want, but if you can’t distill it down to what, how the, or what this means for the producer, you’re not doing your job.

Todd Kuethe: Perfect.

Chad Fiechter: Oh man, we’re in,

Todd Kuethe: I know.

Chad Fiechter: We’re in a great spot. I know, because, okay, so now roll right into, what did you do for American Farm Bureau?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so with, with AFBF, again, American Farm Bureau Federation, I was an economist, uh, there from 2010 to 2015, and a lot of my job during that time was working on domestic policy issues. So that was the time when we had the 2014 Farm bill. We all probably remember direct payments during that time. Um, so the ’14 farm bill eliminated direct payments. Then, you know, things like ARC and PLC were put into to its place. That was the major policy change from, for the ’14 farm bill. So worked at AFBF during the ’14 farm bill process, uh, then ended my, um, time there in 2015 to go up to the hill. Uh, if you think about the membership of the American Farm Bureau Federation, it’s not the farmers themselves, it’s the 50 State Farm Bureaus and Puerto Rico.

And so I think that’s important there, where the membership at AFBF or at Farm Bureau starts at the grassroots. And so it starts at, when we think about the policy process there for Farm Bureau, it really starts at the county base level. And so farmers, you know, go through a, a policy process there. They dictate policy at the county level. If it gets passed there, then it goes up to the state level. Then at the state level, if it passes, it goes up to the AFBF level. And then, you know, a, a delegate session votes on whether or not that policy passes for the, the AFBF

Todd Kuethe: So, so you breeze through quickly. Going to work on the hill when you became the chief economist?

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: Do you interview, who do you interview with for a job like that? Is it with literally the, the, the chair or is it the other staff members? How, how are you picked?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, so it really took me by surprise. It was, well, obviously year five when I was at American Farm Bureau and, you know, everything’s about networking and who you work with and, and things of that nature.

And I worked closely with Kansas Farm Bureau at the time and they said, Hey, you know, your name came up and we think you’d be a good fit for the chairman’s position for Chief Economist. What do you think? And obviously my hands were sweaty and all that and whatever. I was like, yeah, I think I would love to do this position because what farm kid doesn’t want to work directly for a chairman that supports traditional agriculture, that supports, bipartisanship and you’re doing a farm bill.

Um, and so during that process, you do have an interview directly with the chairman. Um, it was very, known to me that I was from Indiana and Purdue. We talked Drew Brees for like 30 minutes during the

Todd Kuethe: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Erickson: Um, and then the bowl game, back in the day, I think it was the Alamo Bowl, that Purdue played K State, ’cause he’s a, he’s a K Stater. So a lot of times, basically it was about 45 minutes of the chairman and I I talking about Purdue, uh, this quarterback named Drew Brees and then his time with the Alamo Bowl when he went between Kansas State and Purdue. And then at the very end it was, do you want the job?

Todd Kuethe: Nice.

Chad Fiechter: Wow.

and, and he knows that because of the work that you have done and the recommendation of people who have worked with you that Matt’s our guy?

Matt Erickson: Yeah. You know, when you look at the whole kind of, and we call it the Roberts family. Chairman Roberts is very good with people. you work with the committee folks that I worked with, but also remember, before this committee that I served on, Chairman Roberts also, was chair of another committee. So we call that the first Roberts team. All of us, consider ourselves the Roberts family. So if you go out to DC there’s a big, base that’s out there, and so that those relationships, I mean, it’s like family because, again, you go through the policy trenches, you go through the debates, the negotiations, and you just have lasting friendships that come out of those.

Todd Kuethe: So again, one of the premises we talked about a little bit before, I don’t know if we mentioned it on the mics here yet, but I think people don’t really understand what it is to like make policy.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Todd Kuethe: So tell us like what is a typical day for the chief economist of the Senate Ag Committee? Like what do you do with your time? What are your activities?

Matt Erickson: Do you wanna talk non covid or covid?

Todd Kuethe: Oh, let’s do, let’s do non, let’s do non covid. Yeah. And we’ll just assume the covid part was depressing and more isolated version of the real,

Matt Erickson: So a lot of my job, you know, as, as chief Economist was, you know, one, I would get into the office pretty early around probably 6 30, 7 o’clock in the morning, and the first thing I would probably do for, for the hour is to read. Things like the Wall Street Journal, the Ag press, Agri Pulse those type of news publications. I want to know what’s going on with regard to, what’s being said out there. You know, maybe there’s some issues that we are, we’re not directly work working on, but I want to know what the issues are with o the overall U.S. economy. And the ag economy because again, the way that we have this structured is, you know what I want to hear from the boots on the ground and what farmers are are dealing with out in the countryside.

But you think about the time during that, that ’15 to 2021, time period where I was on the Senate and we were trending towards a post boom cycle in the ag economy.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah, sure.

Matt Erickson: It was like the post 2012 drought. We had the 2014 farm bill and then all of a sudden, net farm income really struggled. Uh, during those periods leading up to the ’18 farm bill. a lot of times there it was dealing with, lower commodity prices. It was dealing with, sticky inputs.when we go through these boom bust cycles, you know, generally speaking prices, commodity prices are more volatile than inputs. So dealing with that. and then, you get into the day there and then you’re just booked with meetings after meetings. And, especially during a Farm Bill process, you literally wanna go to every member that you can on your side of the aisle and really understand what those member priorities are.

Todd Kuethe: And are you doing that, like you’re going to them or they’re coming to the, the committee offices or ?

Matt Erickson: Well, basically wherever, conference rooms are open.

Todd Kuethe: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Office space is limited. and so if, you know, they wanted to meet, in the, not the committee room, but we would have committee meeting space if we wanted to meet there. Great. Whatever. A lot of conversations too are over coffee, over lunches, um, things of that nature. Just whenever people have have available time.

Todd Kuethe: Have you, have you been to the senate ag committee?

Chad Fiechter: No.

Todd Kuethe: Oh, they have like a really nice space. They have this big, beautiful table. It, it’s a really nice space.

Chad Fiechter: Oh, I love to see it.

Matt Erickson: And you know,

Todd Kuethe: And you see, like, you see, it looks like you would see, like, I imagine your job is not like it is on the movies and TV shows, except that it does sort of look like that. They’ll be like cool old oil paintings and like big giant tall windows. It’s, it looks like a be cool place to work.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. I mean, to say that my job was like the West Wing. Yeah. Probably far from it. Um,

Todd Kuethe: but it looked like the set of the West Wing.

Matt Erickson: Exactly right.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Erickson: Um, and you know, kind of the music in the background, everything and,

Todd Kuethe: And, and the people, the as attractive as the, as the actors were.

Matt Erickson: Of course, of course.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: But, a lot of my job as well was think about what the chairman’s priorities were and we would host, and we were in charge of the committee room, and if you look at the committee room, it’s a lot different than other committees in their committee space. The Senate Ag Committee room, you think about it like a farm table, like a very long farm table. Um, it’s not the, the traditional dais of, you know, tr the traditional Senate ag hearing rooms, but it’s literally like a farm table where if you have a hearing, you’re doing legislation, members are looking straight across the table from one another. So you don’t have that U shape like you do for other committee rooms.

Why I say that is because a lot of my job too was hosting outside groups and the chairman was very clear with us with his goals of one, we don’t turn down meetings, we hear from everyone.

Chad Fiechter: Okay.

Matt Erickson: Um, and the other thing two, is if it’s for, if it’s a farm group, whoever it is. We wanna host in the committee space. We want to have it open, accessible to constituencies for the, the taxpayer. Um, we work for them. They don’t work for us. And so that was very clear that again, we were there to serve, um, agriculture in our, our positions that we were lucky to have.

Chad Fiechter: So

You’re collecting as much information

Matt Erickson: Oh yeah.

Chad Fiechter: From these key people as you possibly can, and then you’re trying to distill that into something that will become

Matt Erickson: Into an actual item.

Chad Fiechter: Got it.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: So if everybody’s saying like, I’m really worried about the cost of fertilizer in the next five years, then you say, well, we should make sure that there’s something in the legislation. We gotta at least know how it affects fertilizer prices. If we’re not gonna do something directly to, or something like that. Is that?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, something similar. I mean, there’s a lot of groups where, you know, it’s kind of information collecting. When you get into things like closer to a farm bill timeframe, then you’ll have more probably formal meetings of here’s group X’s policy priorities. And then they’ll bring in members of that membership or whatever to explain their thinking, their, their, their logic. But then also too, it’s an opportunity for us to give an update with the overall process and be transparent with the committee’s activity.

Todd Kuethe: So, so you’re in a series of these kind of back to back meetings, what? Half an hour, hour, 15 minutes, something and a range of regular every job meetings. Right. And you do that through like, till their early evening time till it’s time to go in for dinner. Kind of?

Matt Erickson: Yeah. When it could, when it gets close to a farm bill, it’s, it’s always you’re nonstop. Um, and again, because the farm bill’s just so massive when you think about ag and, and nutrition legislation. You get all these different groups with all their policy priorities. But then also too, and I haven’t mentioned this, but a lot of our time too is keeping good relations with our counterparts on the Senate Dems. Um, especially with ranking member Stabenow’s staff. And so we had a great working relationship. The Ag Committee has always been known for bipartisan work. Bipartisan ship’s not easy, and I think we’re seeing that in today’s world.

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: Um, and I hope we get back to it. I was always taught here, you know, in my upbringing and policy is if you go into a negotiating room, you’re talking back and forth, there’s conversations that are heated. People are passionate about policy. But once you leave that negotiating room, remember people are people and you know, asking them, Hey, let’s go have a beer. You know, I wanna know more about your family. And so having those conversations. And again, a lot of my friends were on ranking member Stabenow’s team at the time. I hope we get back to those bipartisanship roots that, that we’ve been accustomed to.

Long story short here guys, is when we think about the work of the committee and you work for farmers and ranchers and what they need is they need that predictability and they need that certainty to get a farm bill done. And so that was our task and we, we were able to get the job done.

Chad Fiechter: So you mentioned there’s also in the House.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: There’s the same committee. Are you friends with them? Do you talk to them? Is there kind of like regular check-ins? You see ’em out, uh, and and you guys kind of talk shop? Or is it kind of like they’re doing their thing? We’re doing our thing?

Matt Erickson: Yeah, you always wanna keep in close contact with your peers. On the house side, however you do acknowledge that they go through their own process with regard to going to markup on the house, ag side of things. Um, and so like my counterpart at the time, Chairman Mike Conaway from Texas. Chairman Conaway’s staff. He and I would talk on the phone. Um, yes, we would walk either to the house or the Senate side. We’re not that, you know, stuck up either way of fighting, who goes,

Todd Kuethe: they could take a little underground train, you know?

Matt Erickson: That’s right.

Chad Fiechter: Really?

Todd Kuethe: Yeah.

Matt Erickson: I know there’s a train.

Todd Kuethe: Little underground train.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. Um, but no, we would always touch base with regard to, you know, what are you guys thinking here? What are we thinking here? Um, and so communication’s always vital, even if it’s

Chad Fiechter: Because you’re really ultimately wanting to get really close. By the time you come together, you said for the conference.

Matt Erickson: That, that’s right. But also recognizing that they’re negotiating with their counterparts on their side.

Chad Fiechter: Got it.

Matt Erickson: So, at the time,Chairman Conway, then you had ranking Member Colin Peterson from, from Minnesota. Um, so, you know, they had their process. We had their process. But yeah, we would communicate with with Chairman Conway’s staff quite regularly.

Chad Fiechter: Interesting. I’ve learned so much.

Okay, great. So I, I’m interested because the, a person who now has the job you had at American Farm Bureau is one of my good friends. Hey, Danny.

Matt Erickson: Yeah.

Chad Fiechter: And, um, so Danny’s kind of always talking to me about how much work, uh, American Farm Bureau does kind of like on behalf of these senators and congressman, like, about how they think about the ag space. That was mind blowing to me.

Matt Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Chad Fiechter: Uh, because I just didn’t really understand how policy works. Can you speak to that at all? Like, how frequently are you. When you were there, were you getting called? Yeah. Just kind of talk about that.

Matt Erickson: Yeah, I, I think with regard to trade associations, you know, I would say farm bureau’s in a unique position where they’ve got a really good team of economists. Um, and there’s always been that tradition at AFBF where they have that economic shop. And I think that really provides good perspective for members to, to get some of that analysis that maybe some other commodity associations don’t.

Todd Kuethe: Well, and it helps that they’re literally just down the street. Like they’re in, down the, the street. They’re, they’re close by.

Matt Erickson: But, but you know, I, from a member standpoint, you know, what I mentioned with regard to our process and our procedure, because we want to hear from constituents. We want to hear from the farmer themselves. Farmers may not necessarily have the time, uh, to fly into DC every day. Obviously they’ve got work on the farm to do. Um, so that’s when you would call up maybe a Farm Bureau or a Corn Growers or a Soybean Association. The list goes on and on. During my time at Farm Bureau, I, at the time I think we had a team of four economists and a chief economist and we were uniquely positioned where we had expertise in livestock, row crops, domestic policy, um, environment, some of those things. And so, when you work on behalf of the states and then the states provide that information with regard to, uh, their counties. And then that gets to the grassroots. But if you think about the policy process of AFBF, you know, if I’m a chairman or if I’m a member in both, either the House or the Senate, I wanna talk to, I want to get the perspectives of a farmer. And I know if I go to a place like American Farm Bureau, I’m hearing it from the grassroots because their policy is set at the grassroots. The grassroots process at American Farm Bureau, I mean, it’s, you can’t beat it.

Chad Fiechter: So, can I ask a really direct question? It’s not meant to be adversarial, it’s literally naive is like, so why not call Todd, right? Like, why call AFBF instead of calling Todd?

Matt Erickson: Oh, I mean, if, if I look at my position when I was, uh, Chief Economist, I mean, oftentimes I would call, the Land Grant University from the chairman state.

The whole key, of my job was again, developing those relationships with academia as well as those folks that may be in private industry that you can trust and, and confidentially trust.

Todd Kuethe: Do you have any other questions? I feel like we’ve covered a lot of ground.

Chad Fiechter: We have, this has flown.

Todd Kuethe: And so let’s, uh, well, Matt knows ’cause I’ve suckered Matt into being on a couple of panels that put together. Sure. And similar to the, when I do a panel, I’d like to end, uh, the podcast. We like to end with the lightning round.

Matt Erickson: Oh man.

Todd Kuethe: So, you’re at the Senate Ag Committee.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: You guys have been working hard all day. Working on a farm bill.

Matt Erickson: Yep.

Todd Kuethe: It’s late at night. You guys start talking to your hungry. Uh, what are you gonna, what’s your, like go-to food order to keep working for another couple hours?

Matt Erickson: Oh, man. Well, that’s, that’s an easy one. So that’s the Monocle. So we would call that the north office, which for people that haven’t been to DC or don’t know the Monocle, it’s literally a restaurant right on the Senate side. Um, basically from Dirksen where our majority office space was it’s literally just a block away. Um, so we would go there for dinner. You see a lot of pictures of members on the wall that have autographed pictures up there. Uh, but it’s just a good place to, to go eat and also have a drink.

Todd Kuethe: Alright. Uh, if you had a time machine that you could have used while you worked on the Senate, but only for professional purposes, when would you have gone to?

Matt Erickson: Um, boy, this is a really good question. Um, so

Chad Fiechter: premise to so many books.

Matt Erickson: Yeah. So

if you go to the Senate Act committee room, you see a bunch of old pictures when the first time they, they took pictures of committee members. I think it’d be interesting to go back during that time and really kind of see what agriculture was like then, knowing what we know now. I couldn’t even tell you the, the, the year of these pictures but back in the day, it would be really interesting to to see what it was like.

Todd Kuethe: Okay. Then this last one, and I should say, yeah, this is entirely theoretical. I do not expect you to do this. If, uh, they decided to close the Senate Ag Committee and they’re gonna just get rid of everything.

Matt Erickson: Oh my goodness.

Todd Kuethe: But they’re gonna allow you to come back and take one thing as a memento.

Chad Fiechter: That’s a good, that’s a good one.

Todd Kuethe: What are you gonna take from the Senate? What are you gonna take back to put it your place to be your memento?

Matt Erickson: Oh man. I’m gonna take this a different route, Todd.

Chad Fiechter: Nice.

Matt Erickson: And I’m gonna, because

Todd Kuethe: Like a, like a true political right.

Matt Erickson: Here, one, one of the best experiences that I had was going behind the scenes and doing an archives tour. Um, and so one of the benefits of living in DC is you’ve got all these Smithsonians in your backyard, right? And you got the national archives. And so we were able to go and, see some different documents. It is really cool to have in your hand an autograph, a real autograph of Abraham Lincoln. And you have all these different prominent political figures that you see the original documents, and obviously they’re protected in everything, but seeing that history and knowing Back then to where we are today. Um, it’s pretty special.

it’s really cool to see some of those historical documents in original form.

Todd Kuethe: Well, Matt, thank you for being so generous with your time.

Chad Fiechter: Yeah,

Matt Erickson: Yeah. Thanks guys.

Todd Kuethe: I’m sure our listener has really enjoyed it. Please tune in and come back we’ll have some more conversations. Maybe we’ll have Matt back another time. We’ll dig into what you’re doing now. So thank you very much.

Matt Erickson: Yeah, I appreciate it guys.​