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Legislation: Congress on Friday rejected the nearly $1 trillion farm bill by a vote of 234 to 195. So what? you ask. For one, it had never happened. For another, it shows rank-and-file politicians are getting nervous. That the measure went down in flames is a good thing, even if the reasons each party had for opposing it were radically different. Even calling it a "farm" bill was a misnomer. It was really a bloated welfare bill that would have kept subsidies in place for wealthy farmers while supersizing spending on food stamps. The bill's $940 billion price tag over...

The House version of the farm bill that failed to glean the necessary votes to pass and move to conference with the Senate’s version on Thursday afternoon certainly might not have been the most watched or well-known piece of legislation hanging over the country, but the fact that it was unexpectedly thwarted was quite the dramatic turn of events on Capitol Hill.The many farm and agribusiness lobbyists who were relying on the bill’s passage to safeguard the status quo and their countless specially interested, pork-tossing programs were shocked — righteously, indignantly shocked, I say! — and plan to continue to...

<p>More than 60 House Republicans defected and voted against the half-trillion-dollar bill, which sets funding for farm subsidies and other assistance as well as food stamps.</p> <p>The vote was 234-195 against the bill.</p>

Both Senate and House versions of the farm bill that Congress is looking to pass, preferably in short order and definitely before the current bill expires this September, are little better than deliberately gigantic messes full of an impressively convoluted combination of food stamps, corporate pork, tricky amendments, and completely unnecessary federal special treatment that agribusiness lobby claims agriculture for some reason deserves above all other economic sectors. The Hill has a useful rundown of some of the major battles that still need to be fought within Congress before they can agree upon a final bill, but one of the...

The White House is threatening to veto the House version of a massive, five-year farm bill, saying food stamp cuts included in the legislation could leave some Americans hungry. The House is preparing to consider the bill this week. The legislation would cut $2 billion annually, or around 3 percent, from food stamps and make it harder for some people to qualify for the program. Food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, cost almost $80 billion last year, twice the amount it cost five years ago. The Senate passed its version of the farm bill last...

As the U.S. House of Representatives gets ready to debate a $500 billion, five-year farm bill, environmentalists and fiscal hawks warn the legislation could leave taxpayers on the hook for expensive new subsidies to growers if crop prices fall. House Speaker John Boehner this week said he would vote for the bill, despite misgivings over dairy subsidies, and that a majority of House Republicans would support the bill. "I've got concerns," Boehner said of the farm bill. "But doing nothing means that we get no changes in the farm program, no changes in the nutrition program and as a result,...

"As shareholders in those associations[banks and co-ops that make up the Farm Credit System], farmers and ranchers would be guaranteed a “say-on-pay” vote if compensation for the top corporate officers jumped by 15 percent or more in a single year."

Almost 80 percent of the Senate’s proposed farm bill — a $955 billion measure — will be used to pay for food stamps in the coming decade. “The trillion-dollar farm and food stamp bill should not be called the ‘Farm Bill,” said Heritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham, to Breitbart. “Washington doesn’t want Americans to know that 80 percent of the spending in the bill goes to fund Obama’s big-government, food stamp agenda.” As for the remaining 20 percent? That goes for price supports for farmers — an “equally disturbing” federal disbursement, Mr. Needham said, in the Breitbart report....

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote this morning on a measure that will effectively end debate on the misnamed “farm” bill, cutting off opportunities to fix the deeply flawed legislation. At a cost of a nearly $1 trillion — 80 percent of which goes to the food-stamp program — American taxpayers deserve a robust debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) won’t let that happen. This isn’t the first time Reid has pulled this stunt. His iron-fisted approach to running the Senate is one reason Americans hold Washington in such low regard and have a strong distrust of politicians....

Whenever Congress throws too much into one bill, special interests profit. The massive farm bill — which is already 80 percent food stamps — is no exception.

All the pundits and self-described strategists weighing in on Mitt Romney’s 47-percent comments are missing the point. Indeed, most are so immersed in Washington’s corrupting culture that they cannot imagine a political system that creates anything other than ever-increasing government dependence. No one likes to admit it, but most career politicians want you to be dependent upon government. Politicians of all stripes campaign on what they have done for their constituents. That’s what made earmarks so popular with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. They could fire off a press release touting a new bike path or attend a...

In making law, process matters. A lot. When lawmakers eschew regular order to craft legislation, it usually means there’s dirty work afoot. That’s what happened earlier this year, when Congress finagled an extension of federal highway programs and gas taxes. Lawmakers ignored the regular way of doing business, and taxpayers got hosed. Now, conservatives worry that lawmakers are prepping to employ the same sorry shenanigans to pass an uber-expensive farm bill. The regular order passing a bill is simple. The House passes its notion of a good bill; the Senate passes a version it likes, and then representatives from both...

As the all but certain September fight over the 2012 Farm Bill looms, Americans would do well to remember that despite the happy, “Got Milk” images we associate with dairy products, in every purchase of milk, cheese, yogurt, and other such products is an extra cost incurred by the government’s irresponsible dairy programs. These outdated programs inflate prices and put taxpayers on the hook for expensive subsidies while largely benefitting large-scale, high income farm operations. US dairy policy is made up of a complicated set of programs which work both to create steady demand and to raise prices for dairy...

At a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, President Barack Obama hammered newly minted Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan for "blocking" a farm bill that Obama says would "provide relief and certainty to U.S. farmers and ranchers" during the worst drought in more than 50 years. The drought is a new line of attack from Obama on the campaign trail on a day when both he and Ryan are campaigning in the crucial Midwest battleground state. And it comes just two days after Ryan was introduced as Mitt Romney's running mate. Here are some excerpts from Obama's speech, per...

Last week, as I entered Union Station Metro station in Washington, I saw ads for what appeared to be First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. It was a series of three ads, the first said: “Let’s move hot dogs out of school lunch.” Okay, fine, because, let’s face it, while hot dogs may be scrumptious and all-beef, they look like small batons of questionable meat. The second ad said: “Let’s move cheese out of school lunch.” I mean, I guess. Cheese, while a good source of calcium (and delicious), is not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world. I...

While Congress’ divided Republican leadership has managed to hold off the vote on the five-year farm bill by not bringing it to the House floor before the upcoming break, it is still discussing how best to offer relief to U.S. farmers facing some of the worst droughts in years. Livestock producers stand to get help from a proposed $383 million stand-alone drought relief bill. The five-year farm bill was approved by the House Agriculture Committee, but has not been able to gather enough support by Congress to make it a reality. West said the bill is not really a farm...

You might have to sit down for this one. It’s mindboggling sometimes the lack of basic logic that eludes some (most?) members of this Administration. With his comments this week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is one of those members. He recently discussed the hardships that livestock producers are facing, including heat, drought and high corn prices as reasons they’re liquidating their herds. So far he’s making sense. To further illustrate how high corn prices are affecting livestock, and how volatile such prices can be, Secretary Vilsack said: “now producers have to decide if they want to take the...

About Us Resources Send Tips Donate RSS CNSNews.TV On the Spot On the Scene The Schein OTJ Golden Hookah 80% Of Trillion Dollar 'Farm Bill' Spent On Food Stamps, Not Farmers, Senator Says By David James July 20, 2012 Subscribe to David James's posts Last night, radio host Mark Levin interviewed Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) about the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture agreement with the government of Mexico to “help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance,” which includes the US food stamp program. Sen. Sessions explained that the funding for this program came...

The House Agriculture Committee has reported out its version of a new farm bill that will cut $16.5 billion over 10 years from funding of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), once known as food stamps. The cuts in the House bill exceed those in the Senate bill by $12 billion. Sixteen-and-a-half billion dollars over a decade amount to a whopping 2 percent cut in SNAP program expenditures, which last year alone came to $78 billion. At a time when we are running trillion-dollar annual federal budget deficits, it's hard to see a 2 percent cut in any large spending program...

To the disappointment of those who wanted to see reform and fiscal responsibility prevail, Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) farm bill passed in the Senate on Thursday with a vote of 64-35. The proposed bill fails to reform certain programs like sugar, makes other wasteful programs like dairy even worse, and creates a whole new entitlement program for farmers, while spending 60 percent more than the last farm bill and only cutting a paltry $23 billion from the deficit over the next ten years. This farm bill will leave a wide path of destruction behind it: consumer prices will increase, costly entitlement...