Posted on 03/11/2005 4:20:57 PM PST by keat
WASHINGTON - Cuts in food programs for the poor are getting support in Congress as an alternative to President Bush's idea of slicing billions of dollars from the payments that go to large farm operations.
Senior Republicans in both the House and Senate are open to small reductions in farm subsidies, but they adamantly oppose the deep cuts sought by Bush to hold down future federal deficits.
The president wants to lower the maximum subsidies that can be collected each year by any one farm operation from $360,000 to $250,000. He also asked Congress to cut by 5 percent all farm payments, and he wants to close loopholes that enable some growers to annually collect millions of dollars in subsidies.
Instead, Republican committee chairmen are looking to carve savings from nutrition and land conservation programs that are also run by the Agriculture Department. The government is projected to spend $52 billion this year on nutrition programs like food stamps, school lunches and special aid to low-income pregnant women and children. Farm subsidies will total less than half that, $24 billion.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said the $36 billion food stamp program is a good place to look for savings.
"There's not the waste, fraud and abuse in food stamps that we used to see. ... That number is down to a little over 6 percent now," he said. "But there is a way, just by utilizing the president's numbers, that we can come up with a significant number there."
Bush is proposing to withdraw food stamps for certain families already receiving other government assistance. The administration estimates that plan would remove more than 300,000 people from the rolls and save $113 million annually.
Chambliss said minimal changes in all three areas of agriculture spending - nutrition, farm supports and conservation - could save what's needed. "I want this to be as painless to every farmer in America as we can make it," he said.
House budget writers this week reduced Agriculture Department spending for 2006 by $5.3 billion. Their counterparts in the Senate cut it by $2.8 billion. Bush's proposals would cut farm spending by $8 billion as calculated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The House and Senate plan to vote on initial versions of the budget next week.
Anti-hunger and environmental groups are worried.
"Particularly in the House, the members are talking about taking all or most of it from nutrition," said Jim Weill, president of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center. "There isn't a way to do it that doesn't hurt, because the program's very lean and doesn't give people enough anyhow. The benefits are less than people need. The program's not reaching even three-fifths of the people who are eligible. And the abuse rate is very low and is going down further."
Eric Bost, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer programs, told a House appropriations panel this week the programs are so efficient now it would be difficult to save money by targeting waste and fraud.
Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said food stamps are vital to many Americans, "but like all government programs, there are ways to save money."
Chambliss and other Republicans say they are open to modest cuts in farm programs, such as a small across-the-board cut in all payments to growers. While budget writers and lawmakers from farm states oppose the deep cuts Bush wants, they still are very much on the table.
Before finalizing its budget plan, the Senate Budget Committee approved language saying Congress should follow Bush's plan for cutting the maximum payments any one farmer can receive. That would hurt cotton and rice growers in the South and California much more than wheat, soybean and corn growers in the farm belt.
"This amendment just makes sense," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who sponsored the measure with Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "Any reduction in farm spending should be achieved by better targeting farm program payments to small- and medium-sized farmers."
According to Agriculture Department estimates, 78 percent of subsidies go to 8 percent of producers.
There is wide support for a cap on subsidies. Both the House and Senate voted in favor of a strict $275,000 cap when lawmakers debated the 2002 farm bill. In an election-year compromise, House and Senate negotiators raised the ceiling to $360,000 and left loopholes intact.
"If you took a vote tomorrow, you'd have overwhelming support for the payment limit proposal," said Scott Faber, spokesman for the group Environmental Defense. "The overwhelming majority of farmers get less than $250,000 a year."
But the chairmen of the Senate and House agriculture committee are both southerners, as is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where the actual spending decisions will be made. The appropriations chairman in the House is a Californian.
Subsidies should be means tested or done away with.
The Rebublican senators floating this idea should be strung up.
There should not be an entitlement to any way of life, farming included.
A welfare queen is a welfare queen is a welfare queen.
I agree. This subsidy thing is wrong at its core.
BTW, in the Midwest there are probably more large corporate farmers than there are small family farmers these days.
I'm with you.
I support the farm subsidies, because a strong agriculture is necessary for the defense of the nation. But to make a choice between farm subsidies and food for the poor is like the local politicians always threatening to cut children's education first.
It's an unnecessary choice. It's a political move and if the Republicans keep voting this way, I might just have to vote for...... No, there's no way I can vote for democrats while they support abortion.........I can't believe the pot smoking libertarians would do any better. They'd cut both food for the poor and the farm bill in a second and subsidize hemp............The green party is just too strange.......There's got to be somebody somewhere worth voting for.
I agree with every word you said Keat. I'm not liberal either, but cut back assistance to hungry people to keep the pork for rich farmers nice and fat? Good gosh, and these same Republicans will bitch that Bush doesn't do enough to control deficits.
I live on a farm in the Midwest. I don't think the medium to small farmers see much of this money. I think lower caps would be a great thing. Unfortunately for nearly all farmers, livestock and grain prices are generally low, hence the need for subsidies.
"It's an unnecessary choice. It's a political move and if the Republicans keep voting this way, I might just have to vote for...... No, there's no way I can vote for democrats while they support abortion.........I can't believe the pot smoking libertarians would do any better. They'd cut both food for the poor and the farm bill in a second and subsidize hemp............The green party is just too strange.......There's got to be somebody somewhere worth voting for."
I understand your frustration and agree with your comments, though I would modify one aspect of it...no way I can vote for Democrats while they support abortion AND ARE EVIL, ANTI-AMERICAN, IRAQ TERRORIST-EMBOLDENING, SADDAM SHILLING, EXTREMIST PARTISAN, LOW LIFE BUSH-HATING PSYCHOS WHO ARE MORE INTERESTED IN POWER THAN LEADING, MORE INTERESTED IN DIVIDING THE GOVERNING AND MORE INTERESTED IN SLANDERING BUSH THAN COMING UP WITH CONSTRUCTIVE SOLUTIONS. But other than that one minor modification to your wording, I agree wholeheartedly.
Our corporate farmers are getting fatter at the government trough. Our poor are getting fatter at the government trough. They ought to both be cut.
Reminds me of the passage in Catch 22 where the guy builds his reputation as a farmer by not farming and getting subsidies. He's such a good non-farmer that he goes around giving speaches to other farmers teaching them how to not farm and thus become more prosperous farmers.
Yeah, That is an important point.
Now would be a particularly good time to get out of corn in fact. They are busy working on a variety of sweetcorn that takes only 60 days from planting to harvest so that it can be raised all the way to Northern Canada.
No big thing, eh?! Of course that's one of the world's largest expanses of land otherwise not put into agricultural use. Just imagine how much corn can be produced.
Then there are the guys figuring out how to put genes into banana cultivars so that they, too, can be raised successfully in Canada.
All of this means that in the long run the price of corn and bananas is going to drop to historically low levels ~ and lots of folks now living in the Caribbean and Latin America will be out of work.
Farmers are your Typical Socialist hypocrites.
They're all for cutting the other guys program, but when it comes to their own, they won't tolerate any of it.
"The administration estimates that plan would remove more than 300,000 people from the rolls and save $113 million annually."
*RUBS EYES* Am I understanding that correctly? It costs $113 MILLION dollars to subzidize ONLY 300,000 people on Food Stamps FOR ONLY ONE YEAR? That's insane! We're lower-middle class, and I feed a family of five on about $2,100.00 a year.
As usual, when you look at The Big Picture, there's enough pork in ALL government programs that could readily be cut. (And I'm from an unsubsidized midwest farm family.)
Well hell, why don't we simply subsidize anyone and every who sells products which have "low prices."
Maybe a few billion for Wal Mart is on order, they sell products at low prices.
This may apply. I'm watching the Food Channel. You know the cute Italian gal with the dark blond hair? Well, she has flaming red hair now:) Don't get too close.
"There's got to be somebody somewhere worth voting for."
The problem as I see it is that House Republicans have become as fat and sassy as the Dems. were before they lost control of congress in 1994. We've lost the "storm the hustings" mentality that gained us control of Congress. Dennis Hastert is just not an effective or motivating leader of the GOP in the House like Newt was. He doesn't effectively energize them or galvanize their support around important principles like Social Security reform or cutting deficits. He's too lackluster and hands-off it seems to me whereas Newt would be riding through the House gathering up support for all these initiatives. There would be no question of SS private accounts passing through a Gingrich-lead House, or of cutting farm subsidies if that's what the president was asking for. It's a shame. The GOP better wake up before it suffers its own mass election slaughter in the Congress like the Dems. did in 1994 after becoming too arrogant and complacent.
Where did you get the ridiculous idea that farm subsidies had even the slightest thing to do with a "strong agriculture"?
Price supports came about because farming seemed to historically be feast or famine. In order to even out the lean and fat years, gov't agreed to guarantee a minimum level of payment for a farm grown product. It kept farmers in business with a minimum of direct interference from the governments. When the gov't picked up overproduced products, the excess was stored for future use in famine years or doled out to other assistance programs on the domestic side of government assistance....reduced prices paid by schools for lunch programs or provided to other countries needing food relief.
As with all things great and small, there are people willing to cheat the system, or at least game it.
The idea is a great one, now if only there was proper oversight and no loopholes. Ha.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.