The farm bill is bogged down, not by flood waters, like in this 2019 file photo from Hamburg, Iowa, but by politics. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Politicians do not appear to be serious about passing a new five-year farm bill before the November elections.
The House Agriculture Committee controlled by Republicans last week on a 33-21 vote recommended a bill to the floor that is dead on arrival in the Senate. The bill will cut nutrition benefits by $27 billion, which Democrats cannot accept.
“I think the fact that we’re crossing that red line raises the real possibility of being unable to get a farm bill through the process,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. “It is essentially a crack in the coalition that is absolutely necessary to the passage of a farm bill.”
“… Key parts of the House bill split the Farm Bill coalition in a way that makes it impossible to achieve the votes to become law,” said Senate Ag Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. “And it is also clear that we do not have time to waste on proposals that cannot meet that goal.”
Congress blew past a farm bill deadline last September. Its extension expires Sept. 30. House Ag Committee Chair GT Thompson, R-Pa., swore he would get a bill out of committee before Memorial Day. That doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere.
Of course, the $1.5 trillion legislation is vital to Iowa, covering everything from crop insurance to conservation payments to school lunch programs. Lobbyists jammed the committee room to make certain their sundry nests remain feathered.
Four Democrats joined 29 Republicans to put forward legislation that lifts income caps for larger farms, increases subsidies for crop insurance and limits executive authority over the Commodity Credit Corp. None of this can (or should) get past the Senate or the White House.
Republicans held up the last farm bill two years over funding for nutrition and conservation programs. The bill finally passed in 2018. The same old issues come up again, already having been argued ad nauseam. The result is delay and uncertainty. What was a bipartisan exercise has become a vehicle for grandstanding.
It shows how unserious the House GOP is about governing. Thompson pledged bipartisanship but defeated every Democratic amendment on a straight party-line vote. We will increase subsidies for larger farms and shift conservation funding their way, while cutting food aid for the poor. To hell with amendments and children who need a decent meal.
Farmers need city folks to subsidize their crop insurance premium. That’s the coalition that can pass big legislation. The House GOP is more interested in making a point about welfare queens than it is about how to make the popular Conservation Stewardship Program available to more Iowa farmers.
The Senate Ag Committee has been more bipartisan. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell understands how important SNAP benefits are to poor rural whites in Kentucky. He advised his friends in the House to tread carefully but they did not listen.
Vilsack has been accommodating to corporate interests wanting a chunk of that climate-smart money. He thought he was buying their complicity in doing something about agricultural resilience against obviously extreme weather (see Greenfield, Iowa). What he gets in return is a kick in the teeth. The House bill attempts to emasculate him. What is the point?
Just a few weeks ago leading Republicans in the Senate, including Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, acknowledged that another one-year extension probably will be required. Let a new Congress and president hash it out. That well could be under a flipped scenario: Democrats narrowly in control of the House, Republicans taking the Senate, and Donald Trump back in the White House.
All the posturing suggests that the most important piece of federal legislation affecting Iowa will get punted again. More of the same, even if something can get rushed through this year.
We could address economic diversity, soil health and water quality, and better nutrition if we were serious about it. The House farm bill shows that we’re not.
Meanwhile, another dairy worker just came down with the avian flu. Louisiana is giving way to the Gulf of Mexico, and they can barely water the cattle in Kansas. We’re shipping black gold down the river. In Storm Lake, the food pantry lights go out for lack of funding — we aren’t feeding the hungry in the protein capital of the world, Christian soldiers!
More of the same stuff that has been hollowing out rural Iowa for a half-century, bought and paid for by those lobbyists packing the meeting room.
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