Bush Vows Veto On Farm Bill
Lawmakers plan vote on measure next week
Published May 8, 2008
With farmers' incomes increasing because of soaring commodity prices, getting a farm bill passed continued to prove problematic Thursday, as congressional negotiators unveiled a new version that the White House criticized.
Members of the Senate and House conference committee have been working for a month to resolve their numerous differences on the measure, versions of which were approved by each chamber last year. The two chambers plan to take a formal vote on their compromise bill next week and then send it to President Bush for consideration.
Bush, however, immediately vowed to veto it, with Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer saying the $296 billion bill is overstocked with subsidies for farmers who are doing well.
Congressional negotiators largely sidestepped the controversial provisions that require the government to give farmers direct payments based on the amount of land they own and the crops they produce, although the bill includes about $25 billion in subsidies for farmers over the next five years.
The compromise bill announced Thursday would cut the adjusted-gross-income level at which farmers qualify for farm subsidies to $750,000 annually from $2.5 million.
Those with non-farm incomes of more than $500,000 a year also would be ineligible for subsidies. That provision is an effort to keep subsidies from landowners who are not directly involved in farming.
The Bush administration had been pushing for an income cap of $200,000, noting that average farm income is above $80,000.
Under the current subsidy program, the top 1 percent of farm-subsidy beneficiaries received 17 percent of the federal subsidies between 2003 and 2005, or an average of $377,484 apiece, according to Department of Agriculture figures obtained by the Environmental Working Group. In Illinois, 66 percent of the 73,027 farms received some sort of government subsidy since 2002, according to USDA figures.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, announced that a final agreement had been reached and praised the compromise bill, while challenging the president's veto threat.
"Like any compromise bill resulting from hard bargaining among regional and other interests, this farm bill is far from perfect," Harkin said.
Schafer called the bill deeply flawed.
"This legislation lacks meaningful farm program reform and expands the size and scope of government," he said, adding that, "The president will veto this bill."
While numerous details of the compromise bill were not immediately released by congressional negotiators, Harkin and his colleagues noted some highlights, including a $10.4 billion increase in spending on nutrition programs.
The bill also includes funding for food stamps and several other federal food programs that generally benefit lower-income families and children. The slow work on the bill meant that many of those food-aid recipients have seen their benefits erode as food prices have increased, as funding to adjust the benefits for inflation lagged.
About 60 percent of the overall spending is directed toward nutrition programs.
The bill also includes a new average-crop-revenue program as a means of crop insurance for farmers who agree to a 20 percent reduction in direct farm subsidy payments. Also included is a $3.8 billion disaster insurance program that critics say is most likely to benefit North Dakota and Montana, regions where wheat farmers experience crop losses with regularity.
