(2008-04-18) Farm Bill Status

The Farm Bill will get resolved this week. No version seems to make real change.

• Apr18: no deal, got 1-week extension

• Apr23: George W Bush is not happy with what's being talked about, doesn't want to increase taxes to pay for it. He wants them to just extend the current law by a year or two...

• Apr24: the dealing goes on. Even the Ny Times seems critical of the payment system, and quotes Tom Harkin (Chairman of the Ag Committee): "It doesn't make sense, but farmers continue to get it." Mr. Harkin said there was not much he could do because "I don't have the votes," adding, "People love free money."

• have any Presidential Candidates 2008 made comments about this? There's some encouraging trail from their Voting Record-s, but I haven't seen anything explicit currently.

  • I emailed Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer and Jerrold Nadler, since they represent me, kinda.

May15: passed in the US Senate.

• Mr. Bush had sought an adjusted gross income limit of $200,000 above which farmers could not qualify for any subsidy payments. The bill passed by the Senate and House, however, allows farm income of up to $750,000 and nonfarm income of $500,000 per individual. That $750,000 limit applies to only one subsidy program.

• Only two Democratic senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, both of Rhode Island, voted against the bill. The 13 Republicans who voted against it included Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, a former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, who has called the measure fiscally irresponsible. The three presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, both Democrats, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, were absent. Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, also did not vote.

Crap. Following veto override votes of 316-108 in the House and 82-13 in the Senate, the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 was enacted into law on May 22nd, with the exception of the bill's trade title.