The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released a report that will help you study up for this Wednesday’s Senate Farm Bill mark-up hearing. Farm Safety Net Proposals in the 112th Congress, is a solid and quick overview of the issues confronting Congress as it looks to reauthorize a myriad of taxpayer funded programs and supports related to agriculture. It also describes the more than dozen major proposals that have popped up the last few months.
While the Senate Farm Bill is not in this piece—no surprise for a bill released after 3:00 pm last Friday—the report is a must read for anyone concerned about the so-called agricultural “safety net.” Taxpayers are projected to spend nearly $75 billion over the next five years just on programs like direct payments, which gives cash to owners of farm land whether they farm or not, and subsidies for crop insurance—a program where agricultural businesses can ensure revenue while taxpayers pick up, on average, 60% of the tab. All this while farm businesses have experienced some of the best years in decades.
Yet as CRS highlights, most of the proposals floating around Washington, even when they eliminate something as egregious as direct payments, plow those “savings” not into deficit reduction, but into a new entitlement that will pay agricultural business when they suffer as little as a 5% loss in expected revenue. That is a tax dollar financed revenue guarantee that is the envy of many an industry.
Agricultural businesses need to pull their weight in helping taxpayers tackle our nation’s $15 trillion debt. The Senate Committee on Agriculture’s proposed Farm Bill falls short of what’s needed.
--Read our analysis of the Senate Farm Bill Proposal Here: Senate Agriculture Committee Proposes Entitlement Filled Farm Bill
--Read the CRS Report Here: Farm Safety Net Proposals in the 112th Congress
--For more on Agricultural Programs and their affect on the budget: Budget Issues Shaping a 2012 Farm Bill
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