House OKs Farm Bill, But Leaves Out Food Stamps
After two embarrassing failures to pass a farm bill, usually a popular bipartisan exercise marrying crop subsidies with food stamps, House Republicans on Thursday split the two pieces apart, claiming to reform crop subsidies by increasing them and promising to reform food stamps by cutting them.
The result was a razor thin, 216-208, partisan passage of a bill that managed to infuriate stakeholders, including the Congressional Black Caucus, environmental groups, the conservative Club for Growth and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
"This partisan bill is an abomination that shows just how out of touch and out of control this extreme, Tea Party-controlled Congress is," said Rep. Barbara Lee, an Oakland Democrat.
Democrats outraged
Lee and other black lawmakers were horrified that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, was omitted from the bill, to be dealt with later. Republicans want to cut $20 billion from the program over the next decade. Food stamp spending has doubled in five years to $80 billion annually, and 48 million Americans now participate.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called the issue of feeding the poor "almost biblical in nature," saying splitting the bill was "one of the worst things" Republicans have done.
The bill also would toss out a California law, approved by voters in 2008, that eggs shipped into the state be produced in conditions where hens can spread their wings. That provision was sought by Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, which is the nation's leading egg producer.
It was unclear until the vote whether the third version of the farm bill had enough GOP support to pass, despite failure of a $1 trillion bill last month at the hands of Tea Party conservatives, and failure to pass a similar bill last year.
The Republican Party is torn between members who want to cut food stamps and those who would spend more on big farms.
The "farm bill farm bill," as Agriculture Committee chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., described the crop subsidy bill, would increase crop insurance and other subsidies by $1.3 billion next year. The bill would spend $1 billion more than the version that passed the Senate, controlled by Democrats.
"The same people who refused to provide health insurance to kids voted to provide unlimited insurance to corn and cotton farmers," said Scott Faber, chief lobbyist for the liberal Environmental Working Group. "Hypocrisy is not a strong enough word for the unbelievably irresponsible vote by the House today."
'Bait and switch'
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, called the bill "a staggering, undemocratic bait-and-switch that will bury taxpayers under billions of subsidies in perpetuity."
The crop subsidies would be permanent, but conservation and other farm-related programs would expire in 2015. Other programs, such as research aid that California fruit and vegetable growers rely on, also would expire.
GOP leaders issued the 608-page bill Wednesday night despite their promise of transparency. "It's an unusual situation," House Speaker John Boehner said.
The White House promised a veto.
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