If the House followed the lead of the Republican Study Committee, it would abolish crop and dairy subsidies, slash taxpayer support for crop insurance by half, phase out the USDA’s two largest soil and water conservation programs, and convert SNAP funding to block grants to states with a requirement to run “a robust work activation program for able-bodied adults.” Two of every three House Republicans, including Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway, are members of the committee, which released a sweeping budget package a week after the Agriculture Committee approved Conaway’s version of the farm bill.
In its 176-page “Framework for Unified Conservatism,” the RSC devoted four pages to overhauling SNAP and six pages to summarizing its farm bill thinking. “This is a chance for Congress to change the status quo. That could be accomplished by decoupling nutrition and farm subsidy programs, instituting work requirements into, and block-granting, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and reducing antiquated agricultural subsidies,” said the framework. “This budget proposes that farm subsidies and nutrition subsidies be considered separately, each on their own merits, in future reauthorizations.”
Congress is unlikely to pass a budget resolution this year, so there is no direct path forward for the RSC package. However, it shows the sentiments of conservatives. Three dozen or so hard-line conservatives are in the Freedom Caucus, which advocated large cuts in farm bill spending in 2013. Conaway will need near-unanimous support from Republicans to ensure passage of his farm bill, considering that no Democrat voted for it in committee. Republicans control the House 236-193, with six vacancies. A simple majority is needed to pass legislation.
“I’ve had good conversations with both ends of the spectrum of Republicans,” Conaway told a radio interviewer, according to a partial transcript released by his office. “I’ve talked to the Main Street group, I’ve talked individually with the Freedom Caucus guys, many of them. I’ve gotten kind of a head nod from those guys that they don’t see anything in there right now that causes them to vote against it, so I’m thinking we’ve got the votes. But we want to make sure, and leadership is always real cautious about bringing something to the floor that we don’t pass because that’s something you really don’t want to do.”