News Coverage
House Overrides Bush Veto On Farm Bill
Published May 21, 2008
WASHINGTON _ President George W. Bush vetoed the long-embattled 2007 Farm Bill Wednesday, saying it provides subsidies for farmers at a time of record crop prices, increases farm spending by $20 billion and uses "budget gimmicks to hide much of that increase." But within hours, in a show of bipartisan defiance, the House overwhelmingly overrode his veto.
"At a time when net farm income is projected to increase by more than $28 billion in one year, the American taxpayer should not be forced to subsidize that group of farmers who have adjusted gross incomes of up to $1.5 million," Bush said in his veto message. "When commodity prices are at record highs, it is irresponsible to increase government subsidy rates for 15 crops, subsidize additional crops and provide payments that further distort markets."
Congressional leaders, however, predicted the Senate would quickly join the House in overriding Bush's veto, the 10th of his presidency, noting that the $300 billion farm bill passed last week by large majorities in both chambers. The House overrode the veto on a 316-108 vote.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said, "The president's veto of this measure is an attempt to deny America these forward-looking initiatives at a time when the country needs them the most."
Critics of the bill argued that a veto was warranted because of Congress' failure to cut the large subsidy packages that farmers now receive, even though many experts and policy makers argue that the subsidies are counter-productive, unfair and distort agriculture policy. The largest subsidies, known as direct payments, go to farmers simply for owning land and growing crops. They will be slightly more than $5 billion a year.
But because so many farmers benefit from the subsidies, they have proven enormously difficult to reform from a political standpoint.
"Although important gains have been made in nutrition and equity programs, the farm bill continues billions of dollars in subsidies to large industrial-sized farms, doing little for family farms and rural America while hurting poor farmers abroad," said Raymond Offenheiser, president of the food relief agency Oxfam America.
Proponents of the bill said that it balanced the need to support farmers and conservation with the nutrition needs of those on food stamps and with other programs, such as a healthy school snack program.
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), one of the bill's architects, told the House, "We think we have a bill that is responsible, that is paid for without tax increases, that puts the priority where it needs to be in this country."
The farm bill combines the core agricultural needs of farmers and agribusinesses with the food and nutrition needs of low-income Americans. The bill includes not just direct subsidies, but a disaster package, a new average crop revenue subsidy plan and conservation and energy incentives, as well as money for rural development.
At the same time, the bill provides more than $40 billion a year for the federal food stamp program, as well as $10 billion extra to address rising food costs that diminish food stamp benefits.
The inclusion of food stamp and nutrition funding in the bill makes it difficult for some lawmakers to vote against it, even though they publicly declare their opposition to the generally high level of farm subsidies. Critics of the legislation say that grain lobbies relied on the juxtaposition of farm and food aid to win approval of the measure.
"My concern about the people who vote for it, because it is good for conservation and for food stamps, is that they made a bad deal," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington group that opposes subsidies. "There really is not very much in this bill when you look below the big numbers that get thrown about."
In the House, a small, vocal minority urged support for Bush's veto.
"This bill is billions of dollars of farm subsidies to millionaires," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). "This is corporate welfare. This bill is going to help corporate agriculture and not family farmers."
In reply, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a South Dakota Democrat who helped push the bill through the House, noted, "The rhetoric's getting a little overblown."
