Face-to-face talks among the top four farm bill negotiators will resume this week, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow is upbeat enough to hope for a deal by Thanksgiving. The Senate farm bill proposes about $4 billion in 10-year savings, compared with the $39 billion in reductions in the House bill. It’s a huge gap, but Stabenow insisted that negotiators can’t ignore the food stamp cuts that went into effect November 1. Those reductions will reduce spending by as much as $11 billion over the period used by the Congressional Budget Office to score the farm bill. Typically, these are not counted since the savings result from prior actions by Congress. But Stabenow said they cannot be ignored.
Source: Politico, 11/5/13, Farm Bill
The Farm Bill’s politics are making for strange relationships. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) is defending a Republican plan to permanently repeal waivers allowing able-bodied, jobless adults to continue to get aid in periods of high unemployment. Yet Oklahoma has already ended its waiver effective last month—without requiring any action by Congress. Many of the changes the House GOP champions fly in the face of their vigorous states’ rights beliefs. States like Texas, which have updated their SNAP asset tests to reflect inflation and the need for working poor families to have more access to cars, would be overruled by Republican amendments that impose one-size-fits-all regimen.
Source: Politico, 11/6/13, Farm Bill Politics
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