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12/18/2007

Where can you find Republicans sounding like Socialists, farmers from Zip Code 90210 getting million dollar taxpayer subsidies and talk of poor people who are supposed to get by on a little more than a dollar a meal in food stamps?

Why, the U.S. Senate, of course.

This week, the Senate broke through a six-week logjam and finally passed a Farm Bill that contains some improvements in the nation's public nutrition programs such as Food Stamps and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. But the price of doing so was the continuation of taxpayer subsidies for well-to-do corporate farmers who are currently getting record prices for their commodity crops.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins sounded like a very regretful Robin Hood last week after passage of the bill:

"I am particularly disappointed that this bill does not include an amendment, that I supported, that would have capped payments to farmers at $250,000. In addition, another amendment that was defeated would have prohibited payments to individuals who earn more than $750,000 per year. These amendments would have provided assistance to farmers who truly need the help, and denied assistance to giant corporate farms and individuals who unfairly receive it.

"The defeat of these amendments ensures that taxpayer subsidies in this new farm bill will continue to flow to the largest and wealthiest farmers in the country, while potato, apple, and blueberry growers in Maine will receive very little assistance. Had the farm subsidy programs been reformed, significantly more money would have been available for nutrition and conservation programs."

Sen. Olympia Snowe, unlike Collins, voted against capping subsidy payments to farmers at $250,000, the last and most likely-to-pass of four ill-fated amendments aimed at reforming commodity subsidies in the Farm Bill. While Snowe voted in favor of the earlier and more radical reform measure -- prohibiting payments to farmers who earn more than $750,000 a year -- that one was universally deemed dead on arrival.

Programs for the hungry got a boost in the Senate bill, but there's a fundamental problem with what they got. While Food Stamp benefits will be increased and eligibility expanded, and food pantries will get more food from the feds after years of decline, those increases only last five years -- and then they stop. Which means that unless more money is found to pay for nutrition programs at the end of those five years, all the families and individuals who became eligible for food stamps under the latest farm bill will then lose their benefits.

Of course, had reform of the subsidy payments to well-to-do farmers been passed, that money could have been available much sooner for the nation's hungry. Consider this: The Government Accountability Office recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had paid $1.1 billion to dead farmers' estates and companies between 1999 and 2005. That's one of those extreme examples that normally would prove the exception to the rule. But in the case of the Farm Bill, the agricultural subsidies given to farmers in this country really have gone to millionaires in New York City and Beverly Hills (who are partners in corporate farms), as well as midwestern farmers who earn up to $2.5 million a year.

It's not over yet for the Farm Bill. The Senate and House bills must be reconciled and both subsidy-heavy measures face the threat of a veto from the president, who has uncharacteristically sided with reformists in an attempt to gut the commodity payment programs.

That bargaining will likely take place in the early part of next year. In the meantime, those in the majority in both the House and Senate who voted for the current measure should be acknowledged for sending at least temporary help to those who need it (the hungry) while continuing permanent help for those (well-remunerated farmers) who don't.

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