$1T farm bill deal could come Monday, House leaders say

The Hill ^ | 24 Jan 14 | Erik Wasson

[SkyPilot]

Members of Congress have been alerted that a deal on the $1 trillion farm bill, stalled for the last three years, could come on Monday, allowing for a House floor vote next week.

The alert went out from the House Agriculture Committee to members of the farm bill conference committee requesting that they return to town by Monday for action on the stalled legislation. "Conversations are ongoing and we remain optimistic that we can reach agreement in time to be on the floor next week," the alert stated.

It said that Monday could feature a conference meeting to vote on unresolved issues or a Republican conference meeting to sign the conference report. Either scenario would lead to a bill being filed with the Rules Committee by Monday night in order to allow a Wednesday vote under the House three-day layover rule.

Final issues in the farm bill have included how to structure dairy subsidies and how to deal with payment limits for subsidy and loan deficiency payments to farmers.

On dairy, both sides are trying to find a way to provide profit margin insurance without including limits on production that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) adamantly opposes.

A compromise being worked on could include using insurance premium increases to discourage the kind of overproduction that can cause milk prices to crash and insurance payouts to spiral upward.

On payment limits, the House and Senate-passed bills lower caps on farm subsidies and tighten what critics like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) call a massive loophole that currently makes the caps meaningless.

Under the pre-conference bills, individuals can receive no more than $50,000 in subsidies and $75,000 in loan deficiency payments on marketing loans. For a couple, that adds up to a $250,000 cap.

[SkyPilot]

Pay attention boys and girls - this is how Washington corruption really works.

This is a massive Food Stamp bill as well as a giveaway to the farm lobby.

What I find obscene is that Paul Ryan and the majority of the GOP found it necessary to cut military pensions (and betray our men and women in uniform) to save $0.6 Billion a year, yet we have the money for this?

This is choice they made: betray our military, and give away hundreds of Billions in farm subsidies.

GOP nixed Dems’ farm subsidy cuts, slashed military pensions instead?

Capitol Hill sources have advised this reporter that Paul Ryan-led Republicans included the cut in career military pensions (reported yesterday at JoeForAmerica) in their own Ryan-Murray budget negotiations-proposal and that Maryland Democrat Rep. Chris Van Hollen offered to replace them (the ONLY CUTS in the budget proposal) with savings in farm subsidies. Recent reports confirm that Rep. Van Hollen had also offered the same deal on farm subsidies in exchange for a three-month extension in unemployment benefits late last year as well as currently; but that when the GOP balked at addressing extended-UI in 2013, the Maryland Democrat, upon seeing the military pension cuts that Republicans inserted in Ryan-Murray budget negotiations, offered up the farm bill cuts to offset them. Yet, despite Republican Party rhetoric asserting opposition to such subsidies in principle, the GOP leadership chose to make the military pension cuts the only ones in a budget whose main purpose was to prevent another government shutdown. Rep. Ryan (R-WI) admitted as much Monday’s Hugh Hewitt talk radio show, in which a veteran caller referred to “limited liability patriotism” as responsible for the lack of appreciation of the sacrifices being made by volunteers for service in the armed forces.

Tell me why again I am supposed to vote for these guys?

[SeminoleCounty]

We gotta subsidize all that food we ship out of the country...because the Communist Chinese subsidize their Agri products even more. It would be more beneficial to tariff the Communist Chinese than to tax American citizens to subsidize American Ag.

[ilovesarah2012]

Why is there even such a thing as a “Farm Bill”? Why not just call it a food stamps bill? The federal government is so out of control that there is no stopping it, or even slowing it down. And the debt ceiling will be raised again. America has become The Pruitts of Southampton. That was an old TV show starring Phyllis Diller. For some reason, I have never forgotten it. Her family was rich but lost their money and owed the IRS a fortune. I forget the details but the family went on living as though they were still rich even though they were very broke. That’s America now.

[9YearLurker]

Wow—I had to look The Pruitts up on wikipedia. I was actually around then, though really small, and I don’t remember it at all, though I remember Diller as an entertainment icon.

Checked out their theme song after seeing that it was by the same guy who did The Addams Family: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=—fk7HzTipI. Not nearly as good as that, but a very similar opening to the theme song of Sesame Street—which premiered three years later.

[napscoordinator]

I read the entire news article that was provided at the link and did not see anything at all about Food Stamps. They did mention Milk going sky high if they do not pass this bill. I am not sure about that since milk is cheap as heck already. 3.50 dollars a gallon at 10 glasses (at least) is only 35 cents a glass. I mean I am not sure that they need to pass 1 trillion just to keep milk from going to 5 dollars a gallon or 50 cents a glass.

[ilovesarah2012]

LOL - I don’t remember the theme song but I always loved Phyllis Diller. One of a kind.

[Crazieman]

We don’t need no stinkin’ Article V Amendments convention! Just vote more Republicans! That’ll fix it.

[SkyPilot]

I read the entire news article that was provided at the link and did not see anything at all about Food Stamps.

They won't tell you that in the article. Most news stories won't even tell you that the Farm Bill is 80% Food Stamps either.

This is not a farm bill; it's a food stamp bill. Food stamps make up roughly 80 percent of the bill. The 20 percent of the bill that is left is mostly handouts in the form of corporate welfare and other programs that benefit special interests.

Source: Heritage Foundation

[jjotto]

http://nfu.org/farmbill

The farm bill is an extensive, omnibus piece of legislation that is reauthorized roughly every five years.

‘Farm bill’ is really a misnomer, because although the legislation does contain a number of provisions that are critical to family farmers’, ranchers’, and fruit and vegetable growers’ economic success, more than 75 percent of the bill’s funding is allocated for nutrition assistance for the underprivileged, both in the United States and abroad.

Much of the remaining provisions relate to rural business development, incentives for renewable energy production, and protection of our country’s most precious natural resources.

So, above all, the farm bill is really a food, energy and jobs bill, and all consumers, farmers and rural Americans have a responsibility to be engaged in the farm bill debate...

[napscoordinator]

80 percent????? Holy cow. Thanks for this, but I am not particularly stunned that the new article does not mention the food stamps. However, I guess it does allow the Democrats to say that Republicans are trying to starve children since it is 80 percent of the bill. Gosh no wonder people are freaked out and worried about losing food stamps….80 percent!!!!!! That is an astonishing number. Oh and don’t think I have ignored the farmers who are vilified but only receive 20 percent of the money and some of it is LOANS. How amazing is that????

[napscoordinator]

more than 75 percent of the bill’s funding is allocated for nutrition assistance for the underprivileged, both in the United States and abroad.

Abroad???? I would vote it down just for that alone. We have 17 trillion in debt but we are sending money in this bill overseas??? No wonder we are sinking. I know that we send other aid to countries through stupid treaties that were signed by different Presidents over the years and we are stuck with that, but I can’t imagine that it is mandatory to send money to other countries from this bill.

[jjotto]

The main actual benefit to farmers is somewhat subsidized crop insurance.

[alloysteel]

Agricultural production in that territory once known as “the United States of America” is a badly managed and very clumsy football to be playing a game with.

Agricultural employment used to be a very poorly paid, very hard line of work. The increasing mechanization of all aspects of agriculture replaced all these poorly paid workers, and left them free to seek employment in much better paying manufacturing and construction work, and thus the rural districts quickly emptied out. The transportation industry got a huge boost, as the points of agricultural production were moved further and further from the points of consumption.

But in the midst of this much greater specialization of labor, the country fell into the Great Depression, and the days of the New Deal found there was just “too much” production of grains and slaughter animals, so huge numbers of beef, dairy, swine, sheep, and even horses were slaughtered and dumped into huge land-disposal pits. The excess grains were bought up and put into storage, and farmers were given subsidies to NOT produce more grain, but let the land lie fallow. Of course this led to its own set of abuses, but the positive side of things is that the agricultural industry had plenty of room for vast expansion as WW II cranked up. America not only produced prodigious numbers of machinery and men in arms, they also produced quantities in vast excess to feed this army of soldiers and industrial laborers. So much so, that when it got to be too much of a good thing, large quantities of food were simply left to rot at military depots all over the world.

The Germans who were captured near the end of WW II were surprised that GIs at the front lines were so well fed, and it was noted, that if Americans could eat so well under wartime conditions, Germany has already surely lost the war. The GIs, of course, griped at the sameness and relative unattractive prospect of reconstituted milk, reconstituted eggs and Spam every day at chow, but to the captured Germans this was a virtual feast.

Then suddenly, the war ended, and the agricultural industry was still cranking out vast surpluses of food stuffs and raw fiber. This had to be tamped down, so enter the purchase of excess commodities, such as dried milk and cheese, a way to control dairy production, and with all this excess dairy product, the government chose to simply give away food to those unable, for whatever reason, to go to the market and purchase their own. In spite of the Federal Government’s best efforts, the glut continued, and with it the prices remained suppressed, so the next step was to again severely limit production. The commodities distribution was discontinued with the advent of food stamps, and the production controls soon led to a vast drop of dairying and cattle numbers.

I know this up close and ugly because I used to be one of those small dairy farmers, and there was practically no return on the milking of cows. The real wealth accrued came from the sale of excess stock, primarily young castrated male cattle, raised for “dairy beef”. After all, where did you think McDonalds got the bulk of their hamburger from? It was not from prize Angus or Herefords, which are considered to be prime slaughter animals, and command a much higher price at the market place. That is why, for years, burgers and cheeseburgers were available for well under a dollar.

And that, gentle people, is your Agricultural Economics lesson for today. There will be a ten-point quiz later on, which shall count toward your final grade.

[ontap]

They did mention Milk going sky high

Typical progressive horses#!&....we have to spend billions to save you pennies....the price of milk should reflect the cost of producing it!!!

[ExTxMarine]

Those who scream, “Without these subsidies Americans couldn’t afford to eat,” I say, “Yep, you are right!”

But only until the free markets re-established themselves from the overly burdensome and purposefully repressive rules and regulations of the US Government!

Hell, there was a story last year about a peanut farmer who refuses to GIVE the government a portion of his crops! As he stated, if they want their portion, they can come and take it from the field!

It is PAST time for the government to get their boot off the neck of the free market system! From their stupid HR rules (minimum wage, Obamacare, can’t use background checks, can’t use lie detectors, etc...) to their limited production rules (not too many cows can be slaughtered, not too much milk can be produced, not too much corn can be produced, must limit the amount of acreage to eat crop, etc...)!

America could prosper like it was 1945, all over again; and very quickly, if government would get the hell out of the way! The American dream is still alive, it has just been “limited” by our own damn government!

Most of these rules were established as protectionism! Big companies and large land owners who could afford to limit their productions got the government to implement these rules which killed off a great portion of smaller, mom & pop/family run farms. They are still doing today! Last year the government was entertaining the idea of limiting the age of family members that could work in the fields or operate tractors, etc...! Government sanctioned PROTECTIONISM! Now many of those “protected” companies/owners complain because their golden safety net is choking them too - eff em!

[sheana]

I had lunch with Phyllis Diller one time. Funny off the stage too. She kept me laughing so hard I couldn’t eat.
I worked at a country club and we were doing a small business conference on the back lawn. She was part of the entertainment. After lunch was served to the guests all the employees went and got their lunch and we sat down in the dining room out of view of the guests. Phyllis had finished her on stage act and came in and asked if we minded if she ate with us. We got her a plate and she sat down with us and kept us laughing all thru lunch. There were about 6 of us and her sitting at a round table for 8.

[ilovesarah2012]

I don’t know anything about her personal life, but she seemed like a true lady. I know she was very funny and that is a wonderful story. I think she was one of a kind. You were very lucky.

[sheana]

I worked at that country club for over 10 years. We started the huge Bakersfield Business Conference. It kept growing until it got so big they moved it. I met Phyllis Diller, Charlton Heston, Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan and a few others there.
Other celebrities I met during private parties there. Kissinger, Robin Williams.
I was the main bartender so got to assign dirty duties to others while I took care of business inside.

[ilovesarah2012]

Very interesting. What was Reagan like? Was Robin Williams funny?

[SgtHooper]

The Farm Bill has always been the bloated vehicle for food stamp entitlements. THAT is where the major cost is.