Support Congressmen Flake’s and Ryan’s Motions to Instruct Farm Bill Conferees
Dear Representative,
As the farm bill conference process nears conclusion, meaningful subsidy reform remains absent. Bipartisan calls to limit and even eliminate subsidy payments to millionaires have gone unheeded, and it appears that we will end up with a taxpayer funded disaster relief fund that is essentially a political slush fund to bring extra subsidies to a handful of states. And budget gimmicks will be used in the final version of the bill to hide its true costs and to avoid the House’s self-imposed PAYGO rules.
Reps. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) have proposed two motions to instruct farm bill conferees that will at the very least keep the next farm bill from being even more bloated and wasteful than the expiring 2002 farm bill. Taxpayers for Common Sense Action urges you to support these motions.
Congressman Flake’s motion would urge farm bill conferees to accept the Senate-passed version of the farm bill regarding annual direct payments. Direct payments are fixed annual payments certain farmers receive regardless of their income, their production, or whether they actually plant a crop. Under current law eligible farmers receive $40,000 apiece annually, with a total annual cost to taxpayers of more than $5 billion. The House passed version of the new farm bill would increase the annual per farmer subsidy by 50 percent, to $60,000. The Senate passed version supported by Rep. Flake’s motion to instruct would retain the existing $40,000 per farmer annual payment. This simple step would save taxpayers billions annually.
Congressman Ryan’s motion urges conferees to comply with honest budgeting practices, and to comply with current PAYGO rules. Farm bill conferees are expected to count some costs of the new farm bill outside of the budget scoring time period the bill covers. Thus the bill will actually cost billions more than the official score indicates. Additionally, farm bill conferees are using a CBO baseline that is more than a year old. The farm economy is booming. Farm bill conferees should be basing a new farm bill on the sector’s current reality, and use the March 2008 baseline. Doing otherwise is disingenuous.
Again, we urge you to support the two motions to instruct that are expected to be proposed later today by Congressman Jeff Flake and Paul Ryan to minimize the harm of the next farm bill. Please contact me at or Demian Moore, 202-546-8500 x118 if you have any questions.
Steve Ellis
Vice President
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