Four key groups praise Senate ag plan
February 27, 2013 | 10:46 PM
As the Senate prepared to vote on a bill to avert the sequester partly by eliminating the direct payments that farmers get whether prices are high or low, four farm bill advocates praised the measure.
The bill, co-written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Milkuski, D-Md., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., would avert the sequester cuts by trimming the defense and agriculture budgets and closing what the four call tax loopholes.
The agriculture section would save $31 billion over 10 years by eliminating the direct payments program, but also include money for disaster assistance and programs that were not covered when the 2008 farm bill was extended until September 30 in the fiscal cliff package at New Year’s.
“We strongly support the Reid-Stabenow proposal to cut direct payments in lieu of steep cuts to critical programs like WIC,” said a spokeswoman for the Environmental Working Group. “It’s simply obscene that farmers enjoying record income will continue to receive subsidies while poor Americans are being forced to make do with less.”
Vincent Smith
Vince Smith, a Montana State University agricultural economics professor who conducts studies for the American Enterprise Institute, told reporters at an AEI luncheon that he considers the Reid-Stabenow proposal “a game changer” in the farm bill debate because all the savings came from the commodity title of the farm bill.
He also noted that the proposal doubled the amount of money expected to come from the commodity title compared to the proposal made in late 2011 to the supercommittee on deficit reduction. Smith said he expects there to be some savings from conservation programs in the next farm bill, but that on a cut to food stamps the House Agriculture Committee “will roll. They won’t get it.”
The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which had previously endorsed the Reid-Murray-Stabenow proposal, said today in a blog post that it “strongly supports” the bill.
NSAC called the measure “an important marker for the budget negotiations that will happen in March leading up to the March 27 deadline for the government-wide funding bill. It is also an important marker for a path forward to get a full five-year farm bill reauthorized later this year.”
The Food Research and Action Center, which lobbies on the food needs of low-income people, sent a notice to its members to call their senators urging them to vote for the bill.
The proposal would prevent cuts to education, public health, nutrition and other vital services by replacing them with more gradual cuts to the Pentagon, setting a minimum tax for millionaires and closing some corporate tax loopholes, the center said.
FRAC also released a state-by-state chart on the impact of cuts to the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC.
Most major farm groups expressed opposition to the bill.
The bill, co-written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Milkuski, D-Md., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., would avert the sequester cuts by trimming the defense and agriculture budgets and closing what the four call tax loopholes.
The agriculture section would save $31 billion over 10 years by eliminating the direct payments program, but also include money for disaster assistance and programs that were not covered when the 2008 farm bill was extended until September 30 in the fiscal cliff package at New Year’s.
“We strongly support the Reid-Stabenow proposal to cut direct payments in lieu of steep cuts to critical programs like WIC,” said a spokeswoman for the Environmental Working Group. “It’s simply obscene that farmers enjoying record income will continue to receive subsidies while poor Americans are being forced to make do with less.”
Vince Smith, a Montana State University agricultural economics professor who conducts studies for the American Enterprise Institute, told reporters at an AEI luncheon that he considers the Reid-Stabenow proposal “a game changer” in the farm bill debate because all the savings came from the commodity title of the farm bill.
He also noted that the proposal doubled the amount of money expected to come from the commodity title compared to the proposal made in late 2011 to the supercommittee on deficit reduction. Smith said he expects there to be some savings from conservation programs in the next farm bill, but that on a cut to food stamps the House Agriculture Committee “will roll. They won’t get it.”
The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which had previously endorsed the Reid-Murray-Stabenow proposal, said today in a blog post that it “strongly supports” the bill.
NSAC called the measure “an important marker for the budget negotiations that will happen in March leading up to the March 27 deadline for the government-wide funding bill. It is also an important marker for a path forward to get a full five-year farm bill reauthorized later this year.”
The Food Research and Action Center, which lobbies on the food needs of low-income people, sent a notice to its members to call their senators urging them to vote for the bill.
The proposal would prevent cuts to education, public health, nutrition and other vital services by replacing them with more gradual cuts to the Pentagon, setting a minimum tax for millionaires and closing some corporate tax loopholes, the center said.
FRAC also released a state-by-state chart on the impact of cuts to the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC.
Most major farm groups expressed opposition to the bill.
