Another commonality between price subsidies and subsidies to the poor is that they both set a lower price limit for a commodity such as sugar, mohair, or labor. They cost us money in taxes paid to the federal government (so some farmers won't grow, or so some people won't work), and in higher prices for the affected commodity (sugar and all of its derivatives will cost more due to price supports, just as unskilled labor will cost more due to minimum wage laws).
The Republicans under the leadership of Newt passed that smaller Farm Subsidy Bill. Then the Mississippi or Missouri flooded and the whopping supplementals started. There was no way the Republicans could withstand the media chorus directed by Daschle and Gephart: "You can't be meanspirited enough to turn your back on suffering flood victims." And they piled huge supplementals onto the flood relief bills, and probably every other bill that went through congress after that.
Newt tried to say that what the Dems were doing was wrong and against the spirit of the Farm Subsidy bill that had just been passed. He might as well have been shouting in a hurricane. No one listened when he tried to hold down the spending.