Two House Republican leaders praised their party’s five-year farm bill on Wednesday as fruitful welfare reform that will get more people into the workforce. The House could vote as early as today on the bill, which has been in legislative limbo since mid-May, when representatives voted against it 213-198.
The GOP-drafted bill would require 7 million or more “work-capable” adults aged 18 to 59 to work at least 20 hours a week or spend equivalent time in job training or workfare to qualify for food stamps. The bill would make minor changes in crop supports; eliminate the green-payment Conservation Stewardship Program; allow cousins, nephews, and nieces of farmers to collect subsidies; and remove payment limits on some types of corporate farms.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the farm bill would move “more people into the workforce,” and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, No. 3 in the GOP leadership behind Speaker Paul Ryan and McCarthy, said the bill “has reforms to our welfare system” that include job training. During a weekly news conference, Republican leaders exulted in the low unemployment rate.
“If there’s a job opening now and somebody is able to work, they shouldn’t be able to sit on a broken welfare system. It’s time for them to help be part of this growing economy and get back in the workforce,” said Scalise. “These work requirements that we have in the farm bill are equally as important to getting this economy growing as the important farm policy.”
The House is likely to vote on the farm bill immediately after acting on two immigration control bills today, according to House staff workers.
House Democrats voted as a bloc against the farm bill on May 18 and are expected to oppose it solidly this time. They say the GOP plan will push 2 million people out of SNAP through tighter eligibility rules and the paperwork required to prove compliance with the 20-hour work requirement.
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the Democratic leader on the House Agriculture Committee, said Republicans did not seek bipartisan input into the bill. Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway, he said, “is on the record saying he’s not interested in Democratic support on this bill, so that tells me he’s content with trying to pass this thing by catering to the extreme wing of his party.”
Thirty Republicans voted against the farm bill in May, assuring its defeat. Most of them were expected to support the bill this time. A spokesman for Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, for example, said that “we’re inclined to support it,” once there’s a vote on immigration.