In the days before abject partisanship captured the United States Congress, passing a farm bill every five years or so was not too difficult. Farm state lawmakers got agricultural support programs paid for; lawmakers from urban areas got nutrition assistance programs reauthorized.
The House version of the 2019-23 Farm Bill died last Tuesday because of partisan issues, some of which can’t be found anywhere on the food chain. Republican immigration hardliners voted no because they wanted a tough immigration bill brought to the floor to block an effort to bring a bill reauthorizing the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program out of committee. The hardliners also complained that crop insurance subsidies and price supports for the sugar industry violated free market principles.
The failed bill, which was supported by President Donald Trump and House leaders, would have imposed broader Link work requirements on food stamp recipients. The bill didn’t include Trump’s “harvest box” brainstorm — replacing half of food stamp allotments with cartons full of cheap food products pre-selected by government officials. But it did further stigmatize poverty, which is why it got zero support from Democrats.
The House debate on the farm bill turned out to be mostly for show. The Senate is developing a much less divisive bill. Debate could continue all summer, running into the Sept. 30 expiration of the current farm bill and the height of election season.
As the Missouri Farm Bureau has noted, this is not a good moment for higher costs and more uncertainty in the farm economy. The Department of Agriculture says inflation-adjusted net farm income will hit a 17-year low this year. Most crop and livestock prices are in a five-year losing streak. Trump’s on-again, off-again threat of a Chinese trade war has disrupted the farm export market.
The estimated annual cost of the House farm bill would have been about $87 billion, 76 percent of which would go to nutrition assistance programs. Republican theology holds that many able-bodied adults are evading work requirements in the food stamp program. The House wanted to require able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 59 to work or be enrolled in a job-training program for at least 20 hours a week
Never mind that experience with work requirements in other federal programs shows that they don’t put many people to work and they are net money-losers because of administrative, transportation and child care costs. Work rules effectively create hurdles that punish people for needing help.
Similarly, the idea of charging farmers more for crop insurance also ignores reality. There may be some people skating on farm bill programs, but hammering every farmer and every hungry family with the same big stick is bad policy. The bill deserved to die.