2018 farm bill

While ready to move on the farm bill, House Republican leaders are giving Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway time to persuade "a lot of undecideds" to vote for tougher work requirements for SNAP recipients and looser subsidy rules for farmers. A sizable number of Republican lawmakers say Conaway wasn't tough enough on either group and want to tighten the access to federal support.

House Republican leaders have scheduled the farm bill for debate next week, confident that when the time comes, a majority will vote for its combination of tougher work requirements for SNAP recipients and looser subsidy rules for farmers.

President Trump’s preference for work requirements in social welfare programs is expected to come up today in a meeting to discuss the farm bill with the chairmen of the House and Senate Agricultural committees.

With Democrats solidly in opposition, House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway says he will canvass his Republican colleagues to make sure they will pass, as early as next week, a farm bill that toughens work requirements on SNAP recipients and loosens crop subsidy limits for farmers. Passage could require a repeat on the House floor of the party-line approval in committee on April 18 of the most partisan farm bill in years.

The Republican-written farm bill awaiting a vote in the House effectively eliminates the USDA’s weak limits on farm subsidy payments, said two economists on Thursday. Separately, two free-market groups said the bill was “rife with corporate welfare” and lacked “badly needed reforms.”

Just as they did at committee level, House Democrats will show their opposition to the Republican-written farm bill by refusing to offer amendments during floor debate, said Rep. Collin Peterson on Wednesday.

Just as President Trump expressed his campaign through the slogan "Make America Great Again," a bill filed by two members of the House Freedom Caucus can be summarized as "Make the farm bill Trump again." South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman intends to offer the legislation, which would enact crop insurance and farm subsidy reforms espoused by Trump, as an amendment during House debate of the farm bill, which could occur as early as mid-May.

Michael Conaway says House Republican leaders will strong-arm opponents out of the way of floor passage of his farm bill, which will toughen work requirements for SNAP benefits while relaxing subsidy rules. According to Conaway, no one will be allowed to offer an amendment to the bill without promising beforehand to vote for passage, prompting four key Democrats to accuse Conaway of demanding "a Trump-style loyalty pledge."

The National Farmers Union said it opposes the Republican-written farm bill awaiting a vote in the House. The American Farm Bureau Federation, for its part, said the partisan split over the bill was not an insurmountable barrier to passing a new farm and public nutrition law this year.

The Trump administration will hold states accountable "for transitioning able-bodied [SNAP] recipients permanently into the workforce," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in an essay that underlined the White House call for new or tougher work requirements in federal welfare programs. "Too many states have abandoned this goal of self-sufficiency."

California’s animal welfare regulations, among the strictest in the nation, have spawned a series of court challenges. This week, those regulations became part of the farm bill debate. <strong>No paywall</strong>

There is little bite in the weak limits the government imposes on farm subsidy payments, and now reformers say the limits will become toothless under provisions in the Republican-drawn farm bill in the House.

After Democrats spent three hours criticizing House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway’s plan to overhaul SNAP, the committee approved its draft of the farm bill on a party-line vote.

The farm bill was the missing topic during a 45-minute session recently with farmers in southwestern Missouri, recalls Sen. Roy Blunt. "The farm bill never came up." Instead, growers talked about threats to farm exports, over-regulation and the need for rural broadband. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says low commodity prices, the slump in farm income, attacks on corn ethanol and, most of all, anxiety about a possible trade war are the top concerns in farm country. <strong>No paywall</strong>

The work requirements for SNAP recipients proposed by House Republicans "would cause more than a million low-income households with about 2 million people — particularly low-income working families with children —- to lose their benefits altogether or have them reduced," said Robert Greenstein, the head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "We really believe they need to go back to the drawing board," saying the package is too poorly designed to be salvaged by amendment.

House Republicans said on Thursday that they would expand work requirements to cover 6 million SNAP recipients and were willing to go it alone to pass the first openly partisan farm bill in living memory.