Louise and the Farm Bill
Here’s an example of the power you get when you’re the Chair of the House Rules committee.
(Image taken by flickr user Wendy Harman and copied under a creative commons license)
So there’s the Farm Bill. It has to be re-authorized every 5 years, and every 5 years there’s a push towards reforming it, getting rid of wasteful subsidies, helping the poor get good food, etc.
Now, it’s called the Farm Bill, but it’s really more of a “food bill”.
Over the next five years, the money will be spent like this:
Subsidies and other help for farmers: $42 billion.
Conservation programs designed to help protect the land: $25 billion.
Food stamps and other nutrition programs: $190 billion.
Other, including rural development, research and energy programs: $29 billion.
The Farm Bill is up for re-authorization this year. The House Committee on Agriculture is chaired by Collin Peterson (D - MN). When it comes to the Farm Bill, he’s not been very good at sensible reform. Wikipedia might have the answer why:
Rep. Peterson has been among the largest recipients of campaign contributions from farm interests. He has raised this year, as of June 30, 2007 from agricultural interests - $153,667. From individuals - $47,530 From political action committees - $106,137 Other contributions - $206,295 Total receipts $359,962 Source: Center for Responsive Politics
So when the bill came out of Committee, Louise, as head of the Rules committee, was faced with a choice. She could set the rules so that there would be little discussion (and possibility for amendments) on the Bill, and it would probably pass as-is. Alternatively, she could allow substantial debate on a huge government program that will spend $286 billion of our tax dollars over the next five years.
Unfortunately, Louise made the wrong call. Only about 1/3 of the amendments were even discussed, and each only for 10 minutes. So the House passed the flawed Bill, (but good enough that Mr. Bush has threatened to veto it. Of course, what hasn’t he threatened to veto recently?) and the Senate is about to debate their version.
Furthermore, the Rules Committee (which is controlled by Louise) didn’t even allow amendments on farm program payment limitations (and possibly others) to reach the possibility of being debated.
While I hold a generally favorable opinion of Louise, she’s simply not playing fair. The Farm Bill is a big deal and deserves a free, full, and open debate in congress. She’s not letting it happen. I am not in favor.
What worthy programs and ideas didn’t make the cut?
A lot.
Here’s just one: (quoting OrangeClouds115 from Big Orange)
Community Food Projects: CFP is a competitive grant program that has funded community projects all over America since 1996. The winning programs use the one-time grant money to get going and remain financially independent after the fact. In other words - the more years we fund this program, the more awesome community projects we’ll have all over America.
The projects range from teaching at-risk youth (such as those in a juvenile delinquent facility) to grow their own food and deliver fresh fruits and veggies to the elderly and disabled to helping poverty-stricken Native Americans re-learn traditional methods of food cultivation, thus helping the environment while simultaneously lowering the participants’ risks of diabetes.
For us taxpayers, this is a bargain. We pay a relatively low price tag once and get benefits that multiply in our communities for years to come. Awesome? Yes. Funded by the House version of the Farm Bill? No.
(Inspiration for this diary came from a post by OrangeClouds115. To learn more about the farm bill, read the blog of the Center for Rural Affairs, the Farm Bill Blog, or people like Farm Bill Girl or OrangeClouds115 at Big Orange.)
I’m sure our friends in the Souther Tier know a lot more about the Farm Bill and general Farm Bill issues than I do. What do you have to say?
I’m not a big fan of cutting off debate, either. What’s more, I think that the Farm Bill deserves a tremendous overhaul. For example, we need to find more constructive ways to subsidize corn (like, tying it to Ethanol production), and keep the corn from ending up in junk food, where the vast majority of it goes.
However, if I may offer another explanation, perhaps she’s concerned about the Farm Bill becoming what it has always traditionally been in the past: an excuse to pork-barrel the hell out of it. This would be especially tempting for Republican Damsels in Distress like The Randy Man, who make their bones by impressing the locals with all the money he’s forced Washington to spend on them.
I’m not saying that it IS the reason (and I’d like for Louise to be more forthcoming about just what her REASONS are on a lot of things, lately), but I am suggesting that this is one possible alternative.
Actually, the vast bulk of corn actually becomes animal feed or high-fructose corn syrup. Of course, if you define cheap, excessively fatty, hormone-laden meat filled with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and sweets made from corn syrup as “junk food” then I have no argument.
I would argue that a “good” farm bill should greatly encourage the production of fruit and vegetable crops, subsidizing those crops in favor of grain production which a) mostly goes to produce unhealthy foods, b) tends to benefit big farmers and food processors (like ADM).
As far as upstate agriculture goes, it would make a lot more sense for the farm bill to support truck farming, especially crops grown by small farmers.
Right, and high-fructose corn syrup is in just about everything that comes in a bag or a box, ergo it is a chief component of nearly every form of junk food. Meanwhile, it has the effect of making you feel full initially, but being sugar, is easily and quickly digestible. Hence making you hungry quicker than foods that do not use this stuff as an additive. The cumulative effect is that “empty calorie” effect and the constant eating.
Additionally, as you say, it goes into feed stock. Cheap feedstock, that is. And that makes raising cattle very, very cheap, which makes beef very, very cheap. And the cheapest beef ends up in our fast food, which is yet another contributor to unhealthy eating.
Ironically, cheap feed also makes Mad Cow a rare event in American beef production because there’s no particular need to use anything else but corn and additives to feed your cattle. In England, they recycle as much biomass as they can manage, and in less-than-ideal conditions, occasionally recycle actual steer mass including the brains, which is where the Mad Cow comes from.
Sugar policy is in fact a pet peeve of mine.
Since we have such a high tariff on (Brazilian) cane sugar, a lot of bad stuff happens.
-we use corn syrup instead of sugar. Corn Syrup is worse than sugar, and is bad, just as you wrote above.
- corn-based ethanol is bad. It’s about as much of a pollutant as petroleum is. Also, the amount of corn used to make fuel could feed a family for a long time. So corn-based ethanol is just a wrong way to go.
-sugar-based ethanol is great. Brazil has nice, cheap ethanol that is in fact both green and efficient. We should either import their ethanol or their cane sugar, preferably both. Since we don’t, we’re both becoming fatter and unhealthier, and also polluting too much.
Oh, yeah: and spot on about the fruits and veggies.
[...] A look at what happened in the Rules Committee during the Food and Farm Bill debate. (Rochester Turning) [...]
[...] we posted about the farm bill that just came out of committee. We suggested — partly based on some news [...]