Farm Bill still awaits final funding deal
Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin told reporters during a teleconference Thursday that the new farm bill is all but completed. The final major unanswered question, Harkin suggested, is how to come up with the roughly $10 billion over the Congressional Budget Office baseline for farm programs that lawmakers have agreed to spend on the measure.
"I just say, we don't have a problem," Harkin said. "Our Ag Committee, we're fine - we've basically worked out all except for a few minor tweaks here and there, but it's just now where the money comes from."
A key player in answering that question is House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel of Harlem. And Harkin said Rangel isn't necessarily satisfied with how the additional money will be spent by the Ag Committee. According to Harkin, Rangel wants more funding for food stamps, perhaps at the expense of the proposed permanent ag disaster aid program.
"Now we've got a new disaster program for $4 billion that's going to a few states," Harkin said. "So Rangel's looking at that and saying, 'Why should it go there? Why shouldn't it go to nutrition?'"
Harkin, who’s never been a big fan of funding a permanent ag disaster aid program in advance, said Rangel may have a point. But South Dakota Democratic Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, who is on the House Ag Committee, told Brownfield Thursday she disagrees with that view.
Herseth-Sandlin noted nutrition funding already makes up two-thirds or more of total farm bill spending. And she said even more food stamp spending shouldn’t come at the expense of farm safety net programs.
"When commodity prices are this high, it's been hard to make the case to do as much as we would like there to ensure the safety net," Herseth-Sandlin pointed out. "When it's so difficult to get ad hoc assistance... it will be even more difficult in the future," she added. "That's why this permanent disaster program is so important."
