Let’s go into the time machine back to June 2008:
Congress passed a $300 billion farm bill over President Bush’s veto for a second time Wednesday, a step made necessary by a clerical error when the original bill passed.
Congress overrode President Bush’s second veto of a $300 billion farm bill.
The Senate voted 80-14 to approve the measure over Bush’s objections, following a 317-109 vote in the House of Representatives. Both votes were well above the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, which Bush delivered Wednesday morning.
Twelve Republican senators voted against the bill, but the remainder supported it. In the House, the Republicans split 99-96, with the slight majority voting in favor of overriding their president’s veto.
Flash forward to this year, and 25 Republicans in the Senate were opposed to the Farm Bill, but party members still helped pass it with 66 votes. However, the House appears incapable of passing any version of the bill. They are about to try to pass a bill this morning that is opposed by “532 farm groups led by the American Farm Bureau and National Farmers Union, as well as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.” It will probably be opposed by every Democrat because it doesn’t include any nutritional assistance whatsoever. In other words, it has no provision for food stamps or the SNAP program.
One other interesting thing about the House bill is that it would break an awkward coalition that has been used for decades to pass agriculture bills:
As a sweetener to conservatives, the bill would repeal the underlying 1938 and 1949 farm laws and replace it with the 2013 version.
Doing this would remove the threat of the farm bill expiring every five years, a deadline that has allowed Congress to expand farm subsidies in the past…
…Farm groups are opposed to splitting the bill because for four decades, they have relied on a coalition with urban liberals who support expanded food stamp access to pass farm bills.
I generally agree with conservatives who are skeptical about agricultural subsidies, although I am not opposed to them in principle. But the GOP is trying to crack a long-standing compact that has allowed farmers to support nutrition assistance and urban pols to support agricultural subsidies. This is a real threat to nutrition assistance, so that is why I oppose it.
Agricultural subsidies, while appearing counter-intuitive, provide price stability that was missing during the lead up to the Great Depression that may have done much to avoid the disastrous drop in farm commodity futures that occurred as a result of the dust bowl and were a large part of the crash.
The dust bowl was the result of farmers over farming to try to compensate for dropping commodity prices, and since there were no price controls, their individual solution was to grow more, which flooded the market with their products and depressed prices even more. It was a vicious cycle that extended from the heartland to Wall Street.
Farmers now have government backed crop insurance, though, so I’m not sure how that fits in with the direct subsidies or if it is a part of it. Farm subsidies certainly isn’t the blank check it seems to be.
Conservatives are not much on history though, are they?
Even a policy-savvy progressive like BooMan forgets to point out that SNAP also provides price stability for farm products. Giving poor children and adults supplemental funds to buy food make it possible for them to buy some produce and meat instead of relying on a pure Cheetos and soda diet. SNAP and the Farm Bill fit together for more reasons than pure political convenience.
BTW, I was very pleased by the House Dem caucus today. Not only did they vote unanimously against this clusterfuck pork-filled Bill (oh yeah, even more pork for Big Ag than normal), but House Dems delivered a series of passionate speeches during “debate” about the immorality of the GOP’s decision to detach SNAP from the Bill.
The political parties are not the same. That cliche’ is despicable.
the breaking of the covenant between urban folks voting for subsidies because they want to get people fed and vice versa….
let them go on record for voting to defund food stamps.
Returning farms to pre-New Deal legal environment means agricultural depression like that that occurred from the early 1920s to the New Deal farm programs. Too many rural folks are culturally tied to the land, and lots of them are already hurting economically; the nit-wit GOP is just going to make that group larger and the hurt worse. But GUNS. ABORTION. GAYS.
I stepped out for a bit. I take it that the rule passed?
I dunno. I’m just stating that the farm aid part of the bill shafts rural areas. It’s pure ideological fantasy on the part of the hardliners. It maybe benefits ADM and Cargill and other intermediaries, but it will result in further depopulation of rural areas not being suburbanized.
Agreed, it would do away with the family farm and allow for Corporate Farming, because only large scale farming would be profitable.
If we’re going to subsidize farming, we should subsidize farmers’ incomes, not crop production.
Yes, corporate farms can produce more corn than family farms, but it’s not as though there’s a shortage of corn.
The goal of our investment should be to support family farms and the economies of farming areas, not grow as much grain as we possibly can.
Yes, goal should be support for family agriculture. Dems should not ignore this problem.
Congressman Huelskamp received 1.6 million dollars in farm subsides, kinda of like food stamps for Farmers.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56788.html
But, some of that excess the farmers produce is what our government buys and gives away (foreign aid) to people who have nothing to eat. The free market has never fed people who don’t have the ability to pay.
If our government spent that money buying food from farmers in the countries near the famine, instead of shipping American food overseas, it would be a more efficient use of tax dollars, and also work to promote economic development in the places that need it.
In many cases, sending American agricultural produce into the area impoverishes local farmers who could be supplying the food needed, and helps to set up the next round of famine.
Only large-scale farming is profitable now because large corporations know how to get the rules written to benefit them and not family farms. And to get differential enforcement where the big guys are given a pass and the little guys have to comply to the letter of the law.
Strangely enough, there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States requiring Congress to pass bills that make anyone profitable.
And in farming, efficient scale of production has to do with what you can manage at the production unit level. Everything else is just aggregation for financing, sales on commodities markets, and delivery in the international supply chain.
As people are becoming concerned about healthy food, small-scale, local farms that clean up the pesticide residue and adopt sustainable practices are profitable enough to support families in part because costs after clean-up and replenishing the soil are lower, farm transportation costs are lower, and farm equipment costs are lower.
The financing and crop insurance parts are the key benefits of the farm program for these family farmers.
The large companies get large benefits from corporate and specifically agri-business write-offs in the tax code that small farmers don’t get–even if they incorporate.
I’m always so conflicted.
On the one hand, anything that gets rurals into the cities where they can be exposed to modernity and diversity is good. On the other hand, corporate farming is an environmental and nutritional disaster for everyone.
“And then the Republicans killed the Farm Bill, what has always been a “must pass.” And if that wasn’t enough, now they’re separating SNAP out of the Farm Bill, and doubling down. I wonder if that Farm Bill will pass lol.”
-me two days ago
When I said “I wonder” I meant “probably not”. What that will lead to is anyone’s guess. This is uncharted territory.
Yes, indeed. These are not the Republicans of even the Bush era.
It should be noted, that if nothing is done, SNAP continues as always AFAIK. It does not need to be reauthorized. So leaving it out means it won’t be cut.
However that also means it won’t be expanded and could lead to a fight just on food stamps later on.
Maybe its time for the EPA, OSHA, Dept. of Labor to visit the Koch Brothers Fertilizer plants.
That’s simply evil. Appropriating no funds for SNAP means families will go hungry.
They are throwing away the rural West. Do they think that Bible-thumping will continue keeping them in the GOP fold?
Republicans are headed to be a Confederate only party.
>> Do they think that Bible-thumping will continue keeping them in the GOP fold?
why do you think otherwise? How do you see the rural west as different from the rural south? The same pillars of republicanism are there: loving god and guns; hating gays, liberals and nonwhites.
Because they are hitting them in the pocketbook. These mostly Germanic folk are more practical than the Scots-Irish of the South, who are a more romantic people.
I truly believe the Republicans in Congress are just plain mean and heartless.