To pay for farm bill priorities such as crop subsidies, House Agriculture chairman Glenn Thompson suggested $50 billion in cuts, mostly to climate change and public nutrition programs that are strongly supported by Democratic lawmakers. The proposal, quickly rejected, pointed to long-running disagreements over the farm bill with time running out for action this year.
Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, recommended a one-year extension of the 2018 farm law, which expired on Sept. 30. Boozman is a staunch supporter of higher reference prices, one of the sticking points for the farm bill. An increase could quickly cost tens of billions of dollars.
There is no new funding available so any initiatives require an offset elsewhere in the farm bill. Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow was adamant against cuts in SNAP or redirection of the $20 billion given to USDA conservation programs by the 2022 climate, healthcare, and tax law.
Thompson’s list included diversion of the $20 billion to pay for higher reference prices and a ban on updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, said a farm lobbyist who contrasted Thompson’s repeated statements in support of a bipartisan farm bill with tactics that discourage consensus. A farm bill in 2024 might be beyond reach, he said.
Farm groups have given priority to higher reference prices, which would make it easier to trigger subsidy payments to crop growers. Republicans uniformly opposed the climate bill and regard the $20 billion given to USDA for climate mitigation as fair game for other activities. A Biden administration update of the Thrifty Food Plan, to reflect the cost of a healthy diet, resulted in a 27 percent increase in SNAP benefits in 2021 from pre-pandemic levels. Some Republican lawmakers say the administration blindsided them with the increase.
“Almost every single member of Congress has priorities for the farm bill, and those priorities have a cost,” said a Thompson spokesman. “There exists no proposal and it’s unhelpful that a list of potential reinvestment opportunities was leaked. As the chairman has said multiple times, any movement on a farm bill must reflect the needs of rural America and be bipartisan.”
Georgia Rep. David Scott shared the $50 billion list with Democratic members of the House Agriculture Committee last week. Politico said some Democrats were unhappy with Scott’s negotiating strategy. It also quoted Thompson as saying he was aware that “whatever I identify on this list, we’re not going to be able to get all of that or maybe even much of it.”
The 2018 farm law directed the USDA to update the Thrifty Food Plan by 2022 and re-evalute it every five years.
“These future updates will help ensure SNAP keeps pace over time,’ said Ty Jones Cox of the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on social media. “We shouldn’t go backwards & allow SNAP benefits to become increasingly out of step with the cost of a healthy diet.”
SNAP accounts for roughly $8 of every $10 in farm bill spending. Federal outlays on traditional crop subsidies have been low in recent years because of high commodity prices. Farmers received billions of dollars in trade war and pandemic relief payments.