I know, I know . . . . more links. :biggrin9gp:
But seeing that the House is going to debate this tomorrow, I was curious. I didn’t know what was in the bill. There is a lot of information out there. Pelosi obviously is going to try to prevent any amendments. Democrats have new members in districts with constituents who benefit from current law.
Don’t let the excerpts prevent you from visiting the links. There is a lot more substance I didn't excerpt.
Editorial from National Review Online:
Broken Down FarmShe might still succeed, but she will have to overcome an assault on the bill that fellow Democrat Ron Kind of Wisconsin is preparing to mount. Earlier this year Kind teamed up with conservative stalwart Jeff Flake of Arizona and proposed a plan called FARM21, which would divert a portion of farm-subsidy payments to tax-free risk-management accounts for farmers. The plan would have yielded substantial savings, but, after Pelosi announced her support for the status quo bill, Kind and Flake realized that they would have to offer a more modest proposal if they were to have a chance at success. . . .
For now, we think almost any reform along the lines of what Kind and Flake have proposed is a step in the right direction. But it is a little disheartening to see so few Republicans standing up against such a profoundly unconservative, intrusive, and wasteful government program. Republicans can’t rebuild their brand as the party of fiscal responsibility by voting right only on the easy issues. Every now and then they’re going to have to do what’s right even when it’s hard.
Editorial from the Washington Times:
Pelosi's Farm BoondoggleThat's not all. The bill would also increase by 50 percent the annual maximum direct payment to qualifying farmers from $40,000 to $60,000. This, mind you, is in a country where the median household income in 2005 was $46,376, which is 3 percent below its 1999 inflation-adjusted level. The direct payment would double if the farmer's wife also tilled the soil.
To ensure Mrs. Pelosi's embrace of its flawed bill, the House Agriculture Committee approved $1.8 billion in new payments over the next five years for the fruit and vegetable industry. Particularly galling is the continuation of the direct payments, which were introduced in 1996 under the revolutionary free-market-oriented Freedom to Farm Act. To wean the major-commodity farmers off the welfare dole to which they had become addicted since the New Deal era, the 1996 bill sought to replace traditional farm subsidies with a system of fixed, declining annual direct payments. These "transition payments" would cease after seven years.
However, "emergency" supplemental appropriations during the late 1990s routinely raised the welfare payments to farmers. The 2002 farm reauthorization bill reinstated the traditional subsidies and also renewed the direct payments, which had been established in 1996 to wean farmers from their subsidies. In this era of "Democratic reform," the new bill would retain both forms of welfare.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Lines in the Dirt Drawn for Farm BillLawmakers are set to debate a farm bill Thursday that would cut subsidies to wealthy farmers, expand a healthful snack program to all 50 states, and make an unprecedented investment in fruits and vegetables. . .
Rep. Ron Kind (R-Wis.), the amendment's lead sponsor, said the bill "virtually had no reforms" on crop subsidies. Kind pointed out that direct payments originally intended to be phased out would be increased from $40,000 to $60,000.
Op-ed from the Waco Tribune:
Nethaway: Farm Policy Reform NeededIf the Democrats are really serious about living up to their promise to be reformers, they should show it by ending the wasteful subsidy handouts embedded in the current farm bill. . .
From McClatchy Newspapers:
House Prepares for Farm Bill ShowdownThe House farm bill would cost an estimated $286 billion during the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The money would pay for subsidies, food stamps, block grants and more.
Sprawling across 744 pages, the House bill will face multiple amendments during debate Thursday. The most important and closely watched alternative would cut subsidies and impose much tighter payment limits than those written by the House Agriculture Committee.
From Bloomberg News:
Bush Signals a Veto on the Farm Subsidy BillDespite the president's threats, a veto "is very, very unlikely to happen," said Dan Glickman, a former Democratic congressman who was agriculture secretary under President Bill Clinton. "There are a lot of potentially vulnerable Republican members in the House right now. The numbers don't look great for their party anyway, and this is part of their base."
While most farm-bill spending goes toward food-aid programs for the needy, the crop subsidies are by far the most contentious part. The administration says the legislation will leave the United States vulnerable to challenges at the World Trade Organization by India, Brazil and other countries that say the subsidies give American farmers an unfair advantage. . . .
From the Daily Oklahoman:
Bipartisan Group to Offer Option to Farm BillKind's alternative proposal would:
• Prohibit subsidies to those whose adjusted gross income is $250,000 or more. The income limit in the bill approved by the Agriculture Committee is $1 million.
• Gradually reduce the guaranteed annual payments that are linked to historical acreage and yields. The committee's farm bill would keep the payments mostly at the same rates as in the 2002 bill.
• Limit annual subsidies to $250,000 per person. The committee's farm bill effectively has no limits if prices drop below certain thresholds.
• Create voluntary risk-management accounts that would be funded with farmer contributions and government matching money that could be tapped for a variety of purposes, including investing in a rural enterprise or retirement.
Editorial from The Rocky Mountain News:
An Opportunity to End Corporate Ag SubsidiesAnother opportunity to bring U.S. agriculture policy kicking and screaming into the 21st century will arrive on Thursday, in the form of a bipartisan House proposal that would start phasing out direct payments to many farmers.
The Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment by Reps. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Ron Kind, D-Wis., would amend the House farm bill and eventually end much of the Depression-vintage regime of price supports for commodities such as corn and rice. The farm programs may have become the nation's most egregious form of corporate welfare, and any credible attempt to rein them in deserves to move forward.
Editorial from the Arizona Republic:
Seeds of SanityBut the version that's headed for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives this week is another grossly oversized helping of pork. These massive expenditures are worse than a waste of money. The subsidies are distorting prices, skewing land use, diverting funds from other needs and undermining America's ability to export agricultural products.
And the struggling farmers? They often end up worse off, out-competed and bought out by larger operations.
Op-Ed from Forbes:
Dead Men FarmingFarm Bills are a special breed of legislation. They rarely draw opposition among party lines because both Democrats and Republicans farm, and lawmakers are keen to secure funds for their farmers back home. In a presidential election season, they become especially tricky--no White House contender wants to march into Iowa in January to be accused of trimming corn subsidies.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Kind, Ryan Offer Farm PlanDirect subsidy payments to farmers would be gradually reduced over a five-year period in an amendment unveiled Tuesday by Wisconsin Reps. Ron Kind and Paul Ryan and a coalition of lawmakers who want to reform the farm bill.
Also under the measure, the amount of subsidy money that farmers receive annually would be limited to $250,000 a person, and the "counter-cyclical" system would be replaced by a safety net that protects farmers against drops in income rather than drops in crop prices. Counter-cyclical subsidy programs provide special payments to farmers when commodity prices are below target levels.
Editorial from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Farm Bill: Let’s Define ReformSurely, the House Democratic leadership can do better than this.
Elected as reformers, they now flinch when faced with the prospect of real reform of the nation's wasteful farm subsidy programs.
From Brownfield Network (Ag News for America):
House Ag Committee Leaders Urge Support for Farm BillBut House Ag Committee leaders from both parties, flanked by the leaders of numerous commodity, conservation and nutrition groups, held a press conference Tuesday to urge their colleagues to vote for the measure as is. Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson noted the farm bill represented a carefully crafted compromise between various commodities and a range of regional interests. And he said that compromise could fall apart if the farm bill were to be amended.
From CNNMoney.com:
Farm Bill Planting Energy Seeds"This bill represents reform. We have made changes that nobody thought we could ever do," committee chairman Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., said during a congratulatory news conference that officially released the bill to the House floor. "Frankly this is more than we ever expected out of the Agriculture Committee."
The bill reauthorizes $2.17 billion for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency loan guarantee program and throws in another $500 million in grants under the same program. There's $100 million to help share the cost of developing crops for ethanol production other than corn - switchgrass, corn stalks, woodchips and other materials - and $18 million toward expanding markets for those products.
From Twin-Cities.com
In the Fight Over Farm Aid, This is a Front LineWest of the Twin Cities, the land is flat, the soil is rich, and the farms are big: They use big machines, produce big harvests - and collect big subsidies.
To the east, the land in western Wisconsin is rolling and hilly. Beyond the subdivisions are dairy farms and sloping pastures, suited for farming on a smaller scale. Crop subsidies are smaller, too.
This summer, this divide straddling the Twin Cities will take on national significance as Congress debates two very different views of what America's farm policy should become.
Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat from the big-farming territory of western Minnesota, is pushing a farm bill that continues big crop subsidies, while Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from western Wisconsin, is leading a revolt to focus the farm bill more on topics like clean water, nutrition and global trade.
George Will Op-Ed from the Washington Post:
The Farmer to Fix Farm PolicyTime was, Riley Webster Lugar, a Hoosier farmer, vociferously disapproved of the New Deal policy of killing baby pigs to control supply in the hope of raising prices. When his son Marvin ran the family farm, if a cashier giving him change included a Franklin Roosevelt dime, he would slap the offending coin on the counter and denounce the New Deal policy of supporting commodity prices by controlling supply -- by limiting the freedom to plant.
Today, Marvin's son **** is carrying on two family traditions -- running the farm and resenting the remarkable continuity connecting today's farm policies with the New Deal's penchant for economic planning. The grandson, now 75, is again trying to reform what Franklin Roosevelt wrought. . . .
. . . Under the continuing New Deal approach, five commodities -- corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and wheat -- got about 90 percent of last year's $19 billion in subsidies. This is a perverse incentive for overproduction of the five, which depresses prices, which triggers federal supports. . . .
Agriculture policy -- another manifestation of the welfare state, another contributor to another faction's entitlement mentality -- involves a perennial conundrum of welfare, corporate as well as individual: How do you break an addiction to government without breaking the addicted?
From the Des Moines Register
White House Threatens Veto of Farm Bill“I find it unacceptable to raise taxes to pay for a farm bill that contains virtually no reform,” Johanns said. . . .
The full House is scheduled to debate the bill Thursday. All five of Iowa’s House members planned to support the legislation.
Iowans used to be among the nation's leaders on such issues. Secretary of Agriculture and former Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns is a native of Iowa, but instead of leading, it is interesting how Iowa's congressional delegation anymore are essentially sheep. Pathetic. Instead of scaling back current programs, the direction is to expand them to previously unsubsidized commodities and activities.
