Enduring Drought, Farmers Draw the Line at Congress
Source: NY Times
THURMAN, Iowa — John Askew pulled at a soybean pod and revealed two anemic beans dappled with stem rot, the harvest of a too hot sun and too little rain. Representative Tom Latham peered in and shook his head.
“We need a farm bill — that’s the first thing,” said Mr. Askew, whose family has farmed here for six generations. Mr. Latham, a Republican, agrees. But House leaders, including Speaker John A. Boehner, who popped into Iowa on Friday night to promote Mr. Latham’s re-election campaign, have been unable to muster the votes.
A summer drought that has destroyed crops, killed livestock and sent feed prices soaring is now extracting a political price from members of Congress, who failed to agree on a comprehensive agriculture bill or even limited emergency relief before leaving Washington for five weeks in their parched precincts.
Farmers are complaining loudly to lawmakers back in their districts, editorial boards across the heartland have pounded Congress for inaction, and incumbents from both parties have sparred with their challengers over agricultural policy.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/us/politics/drought-driven-voters-vent-anger-over-farm-bill.html?hp
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Earth_First
(14,910 posts)and your certainly have a long way to go before you have met FEC political contribution maximum for the election cycle.
Is there anything else that we can do for you while we have you here...?
hatrack
(59,592 posts)I think you need to understand what really matters before talking about radical concepts like emergency assistance to farmers.
Oh, and by the way, Mr. Askew, will you vote for a Republican or a Democratic presidential candidate this fall?
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)but we need to review subsidies and insurance programs to make sure there is equality in the help given and not just a system that protects and perpetuates only the large mono farms. We need to recognize farmers that not only produce but also build the soil and protect our waterways.
babydollhead
(2,231 posts)DCKit
(18,541 posts)It's not the wealthy farmers (or, really, any farmers) the (R)s are going after here.
patrice
(47,992 posts)
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)We have been renting the tillable acreage for a flat fee per year (dumb)...but now are in the process of realigning our position with the renter. Consequently I have become quite interested in farming programs. I have found out that our renter who rents other farms too and along with his brother farm them. They have collected over 950,000 dollars in 11 years in direct payments and commodity subsidies. My farm see none of that. I'm explaining this because I realize that farming is one of if not the best protected businesses out there. There seems to me to be programs all ready in force to aid farmers this year whose crops thus profits will be affected by the drought. Crop insurance is subsidized...as I understand it. Now the cattle people I have no idea aboout but just saying........
http://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php Briefly explains the farm programs.
If I am completely off base, please someone knowledgeable, enlighten me!
edit: from link in #4:
Subsidized agriculture’s appetite for taxpayer money is unabated, with fresh demands this year for farm disaster aid. Members of Congress of both parties from states and districts with commodity crop interests, backed by the powerful Ag lobby, continue to stave off real reform. The Congressional agriculture committees have twice rebuffed President Obama’s efforts to trim payments to wealthy farmers, and former President George W. Bush’s veto of the farm bill was overridden.
EWG’s farm subsidy database also details how federal spending on the taxpayer-funded crop insurance program rivals other farm subsidies. In 2010, taxpayers spent $4.7 billion supporting crop insurance.
JVS
(61,935 posts)
mitchtv
(17,718 posts)but watch out for the city folk welfare queens. let them help us consumers make it through the drought. but no, this heavily repug constituency would prefer to cut off foodstamps to the needy to help them keep their 300k$ combines and john Deere machines. I realize its not everyone its some , even many.
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)Who voted these clowns into power?
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)another example of how the Republican'ts can't govern.
elleng
(131,103 posts)Republican of South Dakota, took heat back home for backing away from a petition sponsored by Democrats that would have forced the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill to the floor. . .
Farm policy bills, which typically come up for renewal every five years, are usually built to attract bipartisan support by combining subsidies for farmers with allotments for food stamps and other nutrition programs that appeal to urban lawmakers.
But in a dynamic that has roiled the 112th Congress, this year’s farm bill was unlike any before it. While the House Agriculture Committee signed off on a measure, its substantial cuts to food programs alienated too many Democrats. And its cuts to those programs, as well as to some forms of farm aid, were not enough to appease the chamber’s most conservative members.
Republican leaders were unable to muster enough support for even a one-year extension of the law and instead passed a short-term drought-relief measure, the first time the House has failed to bring its own farm bill to the floor. The Senate, which had passed its own version by a healthy bipartisan margin, declined to take up the short-term House bill, and Congress left town in a stalemate.
The differences over food stamps are among the most profound facing this Congress, as the costs of nutritional programs have been growing rapidly and account for about $80 billion in annual spending. The Senate’s farm bill would cut $4.5 billion, and the House’s version $16.5 billion.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and newly anointed vice-presidential candidate, has recommended cutting $134 billion from food stamps over the next decade and turning the program into block grants to the states. Over the years, he has run up a complex record on farm programs, with votes for and against various bills, but has generally remained skeptical of subsidies and favorable toward fundamental changes.
Mr. Ryan is also scheduled to visit Iowa on Monday. . .
In this and other breadbasket states, members of each party are quick to deflect blame to the other side for the impasse. “This bill is being held up by the same people who held up the debt ceiling last year,” said Bob Kerrey, who is seeking to regain a Senate seat he once held in Nebraska, where he joined Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday for a drought meeting and news conference. “They don’t want a farm bill.”
Republicans counter that Democrats should accept a short-term fix until the broader issues can be ironed out. “You know the president — he’s going to be here in a couple of days,” Mr. Boehner said at a fund-raiser for Mr. Latham. “Some of you might want to remind him when he comes that the House passed a bill last week to help those in the livestock industry.” '
elleng
(131,103 posts)House Agriculture committee pulls back on farm bill markup
With the Senate nearing passage of its farm bill, the House Agriculture Committee abruptly pulled back Wednesday from its long-planned markup next week, amid signs that House Republican leaders want a pause to consider how to proceed this summer.
House Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) told POLITICO that he will move “hell or high water” on a farm bill when lawmakers return after the July 4th recess. But he confirmed the change in plans, which came after discussions with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
Cantor’s involvement is an ominous sign for farm bill advocates, but his aides insisted that the Virginia Republican was not saying “no” to any House farm bill this summer. Instead, they said the majority leader wanted to “push the pause button” and allow time for some assessment of the political situation.
Indeed, top House Republicans appear caught by surprise by the progress made in the Senate on its farm bill, having assumed it would collapse amid the typical partisan fighting. Instead a deal was reached Monday night allowing for orderly votes, and the measure has steadily advanced to a point where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) predicted passage will be completed Thursday.
The crop insurance industry suffered a series of setbacks in narrow votes Wednesday. But in both cases, the results add to the “reform” image boasted by proponents. And the bill now boasts over $24 billion in 10-year savings and on a 59-40 vote Wednesday, it rolled over a conservative attempt to recommit it to committee.
Lucas said the changed House schedule is driven too by the fact that floor debate is scheduled next week on a $19.4 billion Agriculture Department appropriations bill that touches on farm programs. After his meeting with Cantor, the chairman agreed that it made sense then to have his committee members on the floor in what could become a preview of the whole farm bill debate.
“Many antagonists from both ends of the spectrum will go after it,” Lucas told POLITICO. “They’ll view the Ag appropriations bill as a miniature farm bill. I’m of the opinion that the Agriculture Committee has to be all hands on deck to work with the appropriators.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77651.html
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DUers, go to VIRGINIA forum, and support Wayne Powell, Democrat challenging eric cantor in Virginia's 7th House District.
enough
(13,262 posts)elleng
(131,103 posts)This Kos article is a year old. There's Pro-Powell action at DU's Virginia forum. EDIT: I see you've seen it! PLEASE support Powell, and encourage friends, family and farmers to do so! Needs to be able to get his name and face into public forums.