Republicans, southerners, farm groups oppose sequester package as details surface
February 15, 2013 | 05:10 PM
Opposition to the farm provisions in the Senate Democrats’ sequester package began to surface late Thursday as The Hagstrom Report also learned some details behind the bill.
The measure would eliminate the direct payments program beginning in 2014, using the program’s $31 billion in budget authority as part of a package to avoid sequestration cuts to agriculture budget functions and provide $3.5 billion to fund provisions of the 2008 farm bill that were not extended when the rest of the bill was extended through September 30 as part of the fiscal cliff bill.
The Obama administration has said that if the sequester takes effect on March 1, as expected, meat inspectors will have to be furloughed for 15 days and more than 600,000 mothers and children will lose their benefits under the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC.
Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said he considered the bill to be the “Senate Democrats’ attack on rural America.”
“Farmers and ranchers want to be a part of the solution to the fiscal crisis we face in this country,” Lucas said in the news release. “And, the House Agriculture Committee demonstrated that commitment to being a part of the solution when we passed a comprehensive, balanced farm bill that cut more than $35 billion from all of agricultural spending, including the farm safety net, conservation programs, and reforming the SNAP program.
“We made those reforms in the context of a comprehensive, five-year farm bill that ensured we still met the food and fiber needs of all Americans,” Lucas said. “The Senate’s approach of taking away our investment in rural America without addressing the hole it will create is not balanced and not acceptable.”
Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. and Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., are all critical of the bill, CQ Roll Call reported, which was announced by Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Thursday afternoon.
Andrew Grobmyer
The Agricultural Council of Arkansas said late Thursday that it “strongly opposes the Stabenow proposal to eliminate direct payments as part of a ‘sequestration alternative,’ ” Andrew Grobmyer, executive vice president, said in a news release.
“Eliminating this important program for farmers without a viable safety net alternative for this region is irresponsible and damaging to Arkansas agriculture,” Grobmyer said. “We would hope that Congress would be wise enough to not eliminate these important programs without providing alternative risk management tools for producers in Arkansas.”
Grobmyer said that the plan that Stabenow has proposed “will undoubtedly cause substantial harm to farmers, rural banks and agribusinesses, and rural economies in Arkansas.”
Bob Stallman
The American Farm Bureau Federation also raised concerns.
“It appears the lion’s share of budget reductions will come from cuts to agricultural programs that will create much harm in farm country,” said Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman.
He noted that more than $27.5 billion in net spending reductions are earmarked for farm programs, “with all the cuts coming from the elimination of direct payments with no provision to allow use of some of the savings for reinvestment in new safety-net or risk-management concepts.”
“The magnitude of these proposed cuts will hamstring the House and Senate Agriculture committees from crafting a farm bill that includes the safety-net and risk-management provisions that our farmers need,” Stallman said.
He added that Farm Bureau also believes it is “very unfair that only the Defense and Agriculture programs are tapped to reduce spending in this bill.”
“While last year’s farm bill was leading us toward a path without direct payments, at least that path did include significant reinvestment of some of that funding to other farm programs and crop insurance tools,” Stallman said.
He also emphasized the need for farmers to have a stable risk-management program to protect them from market instability and potential yield loss.
“We recognize there are many steps on the road toward restoring fiscal responsibility to our federal government and that some will be painful,” Stallman said.
“That pain, however, should be a shared experience and not take such a heavy toll from any one sector. Once again, agriculture is being asked to step up to the cutting table and hand over substantially more than its fair share. We sincerely hope our lawmakers are not eating the seed needed to sow a viable risk-management program to help secure our nation’s crops and livestock.”
Chuck Conner
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) today expressed “strong opposition” to the measure.
“Unfortunately, the Senate proposal fails to treat farmers equitably, said NCFC CEO Chuck Conner.
“The only parts of the budget taking cuts under this proposal are defense and agriculture. It should also be noted that this cut would be three times what agriculture would contribute to deficit reduction if the sequestration process is allowed to move forward on its own.”
“The larger issue is that the proposal targets only a tiny sliver of the farm bill budget for cuts — over three quarters of farm bill spending goes towards nutrition programs like SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and these programs will not contribute a single penny towards deficit reduction under this proposal,” Conner continued.
“Less than a year ago, the Senate found savings of $4.5 billion from SNAP when they overwhelmingly passed a new five-year farm bill; I think that farmers have the right to ask their senators why these cuts have gone from acceptable to unacceptable in less than 10 months.”
Conner also expressed concern that the end result of the cuts would have a disproportionate impact on certain commodities and certain regions of the country.
“While the proposal is bad for all of row crop agriculture, its burdens will be placed heavily on those in the South, among other places,” he said.
He also noted that the Senate proposal would severely limit the resources available to write a new five-year farm bill before the current extension of the last bill expires in September.
Stabenow has said there would be adequate resources to write a new farm bill and that there could still be cuts to the SNAP, which is better known as food stamps, and other programs, but for policy rather than budgetary reasons.
Most news accounts on the Democratic proposal today focused on the tax increases and did not mention agriculture or barely mentioned it. The White House said that the Senate Democrats “offered a balanced plan to avoid across the board budget cuts that will hurt kids, seniors, and our men and women in uniform,” but also did not mention the agricultural provisions.
An Agriculture Department spokesman said that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had nothing to add to the White House statement.
Meanwhile, The Hagstrom Report learned that staff for Reid, Stabenow and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., told agricultural lobbyists on Thursday that the Congressional Budget Office had said that even though the direct payments program costs $4.9 billion per year, its value for budgetary savings over 10 years was only $31 billion, because budget officers assume that farmers who do not get direct payments would participate in the ACRE program.
The measure would eliminate the direct payments program beginning in 2014, using the program’s $31 billion in budget authority as part of a package to avoid sequestration cuts to agriculture budget functions and provide $3.5 billion to fund provisions of the 2008 farm bill that were not extended when the rest of the bill was extended through September 30 as part of the fiscal cliff bill.
The Obama administration has said that if the sequester takes effect on March 1, as expected, meat inspectors will have to be furloughed for 15 days and more than 600,000 mothers and children will lose their benefits under the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said he considered the bill to be the “Senate Democrats’ attack on rural America.”
“Farmers and ranchers want to be a part of the solution to the fiscal crisis we face in this country,” Lucas said in the news release. “And, the House Agriculture Committee demonstrated that commitment to being a part of the solution when we passed a comprehensive, balanced farm bill that cut more than $35 billion from all of agricultural spending, including the farm safety net, conservation programs, and reforming the SNAP program.
“We made those reforms in the context of a comprehensive, five-year farm bill that ensured we still met the food and fiber needs of all Americans,” Lucas said. “The Senate’s approach of taking away our investment in rural America without addressing the hole it will create is not balanced and not acceptable.”
Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. and Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., are all critical of the bill, CQ Roll Call reported, which was announced by Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Thursday afternoon.
The Agricultural Council of Arkansas said late Thursday that it “strongly opposes the Stabenow proposal to eliminate direct payments as part of a ‘sequestration alternative,’ ” Andrew Grobmyer, executive vice president, said in a news release.
“Eliminating this important program for farmers without a viable safety net alternative for this region is irresponsible and damaging to Arkansas agriculture,” Grobmyer said. “We would hope that Congress would be wise enough to not eliminate these important programs without providing alternative risk management tools for producers in Arkansas.”
Grobmyer said that the plan that Stabenow has proposed “will undoubtedly cause substantial harm to farmers, rural banks and agribusinesses, and rural economies in Arkansas.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation also raised concerns.
“It appears the lion’s share of budget reductions will come from cuts to agricultural programs that will create much harm in farm country,” said Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman.
He noted that more than $27.5 billion in net spending reductions are earmarked for farm programs, “with all the cuts coming from the elimination of direct payments with no provision to allow use of some of the savings for reinvestment in new safety-net or risk-management concepts.”
“The magnitude of these proposed cuts will hamstring the House and Senate Agriculture committees from crafting a farm bill that includes the safety-net and risk-management provisions that our farmers need,” Stallman said.
He added that Farm Bureau also believes it is “very unfair that only the Defense and Agriculture programs are tapped to reduce spending in this bill.”
“While last year’s farm bill was leading us toward a path without direct payments, at least that path did include significant reinvestment of some of that funding to other farm programs and crop insurance tools,” Stallman said.
He also emphasized the need for farmers to have a stable risk-management program to protect them from market instability and potential yield loss.
“We recognize there are many steps on the road toward restoring fiscal responsibility to our federal government and that some will be painful,” Stallman said.
“That pain, however, should be a shared experience and not take such a heavy toll from any one sector. Once again, agriculture is being asked to step up to the cutting table and hand over substantially more than its fair share. We sincerely hope our lawmakers are not eating the seed needed to sow a viable risk-management program to help secure our nation’s crops and livestock.”
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) today expressed “strong opposition” to the measure.
“Unfortunately, the Senate proposal fails to treat farmers equitably, said NCFC CEO Chuck Conner.
“The only parts of the budget taking cuts under this proposal are defense and agriculture. It should also be noted that this cut would be three times what agriculture would contribute to deficit reduction if the sequestration process is allowed to move forward on its own.”
“The larger issue is that the proposal targets only a tiny sliver of the farm bill budget for cuts — over three quarters of farm bill spending goes towards nutrition programs like SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and these programs will not contribute a single penny towards deficit reduction under this proposal,” Conner continued.
“Less than a year ago, the Senate found savings of $4.5 billion from SNAP when they overwhelmingly passed a new five-year farm bill; I think that farmers have the right to ask their senators why these cuts have gone from acceptable to unacceptable in less than 10 months.”
Conner also expressed concern that the end result of the cuts would have a disproportionate impact on certain commodities and certain regions of the country.
“While the proposal is bad for all of row crop agriculture, its burdens will be placed heavily on those in the South, among other places,” he said.
He also noted that the Senate proposal would severely limit the resources available to write a new five-year farm bill before the current extension of the last bill expires in September.
Stabenow has said there would be adequate resources to write a new farm bill and that there could still be cuts to the SNAP, which is better known as food stamps, and other programs, but for policy rather than budgetary reasons.
Most news accounts on the Democratic proposal today focused on the tax increases and did not mention agriculture or barely mentioned it. The White House said that the Senate Democrats “offered a balanced plan to avoid across the board budget cuts that will hurt kids, seniors, and our men and women in uniform,” but also did not mention the agricultural provisions.
An Agriculture Department spokesman said that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had nothing to add to the White House statement.
Meanwhile, The Hagstrom Report learned that staff for Reid, Stabenow and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., told agricultural lobbyists on Thursday that the Congressional Budget Office had said that even though the direct payments program costs $4.9 billion per year, its value for budgetary savings over 10 years was only $31 billion, because budget officers assume that farmers who do not get direct payments would participate in the ACRE program.
