Farm bill snafu means new round of votes
May 23, 2008 10:14 AM,
By David Bennett
Farm Press Editorial Staff
Just as he’d promised for weeks, on May 21, President Bush vetoed the near $300 billion farm bill that Congress passed in a landslide vote. At least that’s what everyone thought until it was discovered that Title 3, a 34-page section on trade, wasn’t included in the bill sent to Bush.
The surprising omission, attributed to a gaffe made during the bill’s printing process, sent majority party leadership scrambling for solutions. The mistake also took the sting out of the House’s 316-108 quick override of Bush’s veto. The Senate followed with an override of its own, 82-13.
The flawed bill sent to Bush shows Congress “can even screw up spending the taxpayers’ money unwisely,” noted Dana Perino, White House spokesperson.
There were early concerns about how best to legally square the clerical blunder. Despite calls for Congress to pass the farm bill again — and send it to Bush unabridged — Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, Democratic majority leader, claimed such an approach was unnecessary. Excluding Title 3, the new farm bill is now law and should be immediately implemented, said Reid after consulting with constitutional law experts.
At press time, it appears the Senate will soon approve the trade title in a stand-alone bill. As Congress isn’t in session the week of May 26, a complete farm bill won’t be in place until at least early June.
On May 21, after vetoing the new farm legislation, the President wrote Congress and acknowledged, “it is rare for a stand-alone farm bill not to receive the President's signature, but my action today is not without precedent. In 1956, President Eisenhower stood firmly on principle, citing high crop subsidies and too much government control of farm programs among the reasons for his veto. President Eisenhower wrote in his veto message, ‘Bad as some provisions of this bill are, I would have signed it if in total it could be interpreted as sound and good for farmers and the nation.’ For similar reasons, I am vetoing the bill before me today.”
Later, deputy USDA secretary Chuck Conner told reporters “this massive spending package — coming at a time of escalating food prices and gas closing on nearly $4 per gallon — in our opinion is simply unacceptable. The President stated time and again that he would not accept a farm bill that fails to reform our farm programs at a time when farm income and crop prices are setting records. He has remained true to his word.
“It is irresponsible to ask the American taxpayer, who is struggling to make ends meet, to subsidize farm couples and those who make more than $1 million a year. Simply put, this is bad policy and it is unfair policy.”
Conner insisted that as more details of the “spending bill” surface “we learn more about the taxpayer abuses and unsound policies in the bill. Just recently, it was brought to light that a $170 million earmark for the salmon industry was slipped into the bill in the dead of night. It joins other egregious earmarks.”
In his letter, Bush listed some of those: “$175 million to address water issues for desert lakes; $250 million for a 400,000-acre land purchase from a private owner; funding and authority for the non-competitive sale of national forest land to a ski resort; and $382 million earmarked for a specific watershed.”
Before calling on Congress to extend current law, Conner claimed last-minute changes to the farm bill had been made. This includes the “so-called ACRE farm subsidy program that will likely result in tens of billions of dollars of new government outlays in the future…Under our cost analysis, if we return to $3 per bushel corn — and that’s much higher than the five-year average market price for corn — this bill would have an additional $10 billion of outlays just for one crop. We’d have similar proportions for wheat, soybeans and rice.”
Despite White House charges — and evidenced by lopsided override vote totals — Bush’s fellow Republicans weren’t persuaded.
Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said he was “deeply disappointed that (Bush) has accepted the imprudent counsel of his advisors and has rejected the farm bill … In any bill of this magnitude all parties must accept some compromise.”
Another Republican conferee, Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany, said not only does the new bill have increased oversight but also “is a responsible piece of legislation for the American taxpayer, and it is a sound bill for our nation’s farmers and ranchers. I wish the President wasn’t wrong on this, but I will work to override the veto to ensure the farm bill becomes law.”
Unsurprisingly, conferees from the majority party were just as dismissive of the Bush veto.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said with all the “critical investments and reforms in this bill that have won support from both parties, from every region of the country, and from rural and urban members of Congress alike, the president’s veto of this measure is an attempt to deny America these forward-looking initiatives at a time when the country needs them the most.”
“For reasons passing understanding, (the Bush) administration refuses to recognize the will of the American people,” said North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad. “To veto this farm bill that features needed reform while providing for the hungry and our children is disappointing.”
By vetoing the bill, the White House “has shown a willing disregard for rural America. It has turned its back on the hungry and undercut American farmers and ranchers. The (Bush) administration has demonstrated an inability to lead on this issue.”
e-mail: dbennett@farmpress.com
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