The route to House passage of the farm bill is nothing like the speedy trip that Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway envisioned early this year. Instead of motoring to a floor vote immediately after committee approval of the legislation, Conaway is crawling along in the parliamentary slow lane, trying to round up enough Republican support to pass the most partisan farm bill in years.
While Conaway circuits the House in search of votes, critics are slamming into the farm bill like a target in a legislative game of bumper cars. During a teleconference held by environmentalists and fiscal hawks on Tuesday, at least two speakers said the bill would toughen work requirements on SNAP recipients but would not set a work requirement to collect crop subsidies. Separately, a handful of conservative analysts lauded Conaway for his SNAP proposals but said he should have done more.
“The education piece is still going on,” said Conaway at the American Enterprise Institute, where moderator Robert Doar asked him three times if he has the votes to pass the bill. “We’re hoping to start honing in on what our number is toward the end of this week.”
Conaway said he would speak at a Republican caucus on Tuesday and on Wednesday would meet “various splinter groups within our Republican conference. Then we’ll whip it [conduct a count of supporters] at some point later this week, I hope, and then we’ll be able to move forward.”
The chairman’s comments sounded less optimistic than last week, when he said he would spend this week “running the traps with my Republican colleagues to make sure we have the votes necessary” to pass the bill during the week of May 14.
If Democrats remain solidly opposed to the farm bill, Republicans will have to pass the bill on their own. The GOP has a 235-193 margin over Democrats but needs a simple majority—215 votes at present because seven seats are vacant—to pass legislation, so they cannot afford more than a handful of defections. The Agriculture Committee approved the farm bill on a strictly party-line vote on April 18 with Democrats refusing to offer any amendments.
A key group could be the three dozen members of the small-government House Freedom Caucus. Two of its members want to offer an amendment to cut federal support of crop insurance by one-third through steps such as requiring farmers to pay more of the premium for insurance. Rep Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a sponsor the the crop-insurance cut, said the package is “commonsense reforms that have been circulated for years.”
Under Conaway’s proposal, up to 9 million “work capable” adults would be required to work at least 20 hours a week or spend an equivalent amount of time in job training or workfare to qualify for SNAP benefits. States would receive $1 billion a year to pay for the training programs. Eligibility rules also would be tightened. Democrats say 1.6 million people would leave SNAP because of the changes, including a requirement to report work hours each month.
“The path to prosperity is paved with hard work and a good job. Period,” said Conaway at AEI. “What we’ve done in my bill is set up a choice. I’m not going to force SNAP on anybody who doesn’t want to meet the requirements.”
Some 40 million people were enrolled in the SNAP program at latest count; two-thirds of participants are elderly, children, or people with disabilities who would not be touched by Conaway’s proposals.
Jobless rates, at 3.9 percent, are the lowest since 2000 but SNAP numbers are more than twice the 17 million enrolled in 2001 when the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. “So there is a disconnect in that regard,” said Conaway.
In 2002, 43 percent of SNAP-eligible people participated in the program. The figure reached 73 percent a couple of years ago, said Stacy Dean of the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “That is the primary reason the program remains elevated,” Dean told reporters last week.
SNAP enrollment typically rises during periods of high unemployment and falls as economic conditions improve. Enrollment peaked at 47.6 million people at a cost of $80 billion in 2013 during the slow recovery from the 2008-09 recession.