September, 2018
Washington -- Congressional Farm Bill conferees met September 5th to see if enough House-Senate compromises had been made over the summer so as to pass the bill before the September 30th deadline, when previous farm program legislation (from 2014) expires.
Unfortunately, big roadblocks remain. The situation was not helped by coordinated tweets on the day of the meeting from the President, Vice-President, and Speaker trying to politicize the Farm Bill over work requirements for SNAP (food stamp) recipients. They know the Senate will not pass such a bill. Most SNAP recipients are already subject to such requirements and the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, has already rejected the idea.
The coordinated tweets from the nation's three top elected officials signaled, however, that trying to rile up the Republican base before the mid-term elections is more important to them than passing a Farm Bill.
The conferees are also far apart on the conservation title. House Republicans want to kill the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the nation's largest conservation program for working farms.
There is still no progress on adopting the Grassley (R-Iowa) Amendment, a bipartisan effort in the Senate that would put limitations on farm subsidy payments. The amendment would fight waste, have the effect of lowering farm property taxes, and allow more young farmers to enter agriculture, but House Republicans want to move in the opposite direction, to remove subsidy limitations.*
It is hard to believe that farm state Republicans in either house want to miss the deadline for a Farm Bill at a time when the President's tariff policies are hurting crop prices and when agricultural income, percentage-wise, is forecast to decline this year by double digits. It is hard to believe that farm state Republicans are turning deaf ears to pleas from rural America for "trade not aid" but are in thrall to presidential tweets trying to politicize the Farm Bill, historically a bipartisan effort.
Yet that is the situation.
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* Current law contains substantial waste in the farm safety net. See this GAO analysis.
