ASHINGTON, May 2 — The House approved the compromise farm bill today, and President Bush said he would sign it into law once it cleared the Senate, a step expected next week.Posted on 05/02/2002 10:37:18 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
ASHINGTON, May 2 — The House approved the compromise farm bill today, and President Bush said he would sign it into law once it cleared the Senate, a step expected next week.
The bill, passed by the House on a vote of 280 to 141, is a reversal of Congress's effort, reflected in legislation adopted six years ago, to wean American farmers off subsidies. Its 10-year cost of $180 billion — $70 billion more than the cost of continuing current programs — includes a $40 billion increase in subsidies for large grain and cotton farmers.
The election-year bill, which tries to provide money for agriculture in every region of the country, also authorizes a new $1.3 billion dairy program to replace the defunct Northeastern dairy compact and a new $4 billion subsidy for peanuts, a largely Southeastern crop.
Included as well are a $6 billion increase in food stamp and nutrition programs and an 80 percent rise, to a total of $17 billion, for environmental and conservation efforts.
Mr. Bush, who campaigned two years ago on a "market-driven approach" to agriculture, said today that "while this compromise agreement did not satisfy all of my objectives, I am pleased that this farm bill provides a generous and reliable safety net for our nation's farmers and ranchers."
The bill is the product of an agreement struck late last week by a Senate-House conference committee. The last debate on it in the House today concerned the fairness of the commodity payments. Under the measure's formula, the larger the farm, the greater the subsidy, meaning multimillion-dollar payments to individual farmers over the life of the legislation.
Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, tried to prevent passage today, offering a motion to send the bill back to the conference committee to add a strict payment limit of $275,000 a year per farmer. But the motion failed on a vote of 172 to 251.
So, when I review the reasons I voted for Bush, I should remember that they must not have included an expectation of less government.
a new $1.3 billion dairy program to replace the defunct Northeastern dairy compact
I assume that is pleasing to Jeffords, no?
Anybody know where I can get a look at the bill?
Seriously folks , I’ve decided to try and get as big a piece of the pie as I can.
The local bank president(leader of the dem party round here) was the largest gov. welfare recipient in the county last year. He has a dairy farm that evidently can't make it without a couple of hundred thousand dollars of gov money every year?
I say lets see what we have to do (or not do),plant (or not plant) to qualify for some of the do raa me.
Is any body out there familiar with the subsidy programs for agriculture?
http://agriculture.house.gov/fbconfrpt.htm
"TAXPAYERS FOOT FARM BILL
If you like low grain prices, massive crop surpluses and soaring taxpayer costs you'll love the new farm bill congress unveiled this week.
An array of analysts say they believe lawmakers have created a bill encouraging farmers to overproduce, which will push grain prices to rock-bottom levels and force taxpayers to write ever-larger subsidy checks."
Is there something wrong with this picture? Looks like Congress and the President support a pork-laden costly bill that serves simply as farm welfare and a vote-getter. Then, add in the $3 billion unaccounted for in the Dept. of Education, plus lost Dept. of Defense billions, etc., and once again Congress isn't a very good steward of the tax dollar. Yet, senators and congressmen holler about the $300/$600 tax cut President Bush enacted. As Traficant would say, "Beam me up!"
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