With this vote, Senators seem to be unwilling or unable to protect small family farmers and taxpayers. The amendment offered by Senator’s Grassley (R-IA), Dorgan (D-ND) and Clinton (D-NY) would have ended billions of dollars of farm subsidies to absentee investors, rich landowners, and fat-cat farmers. Despite the cheap rhetoric about deficits and fiscal discipline, advancing trade, and free-markets, when lawmakers had a choice they sided with the powerful farm lobby and continued doling out millions to corporate agribusinesses instead of protecting taxpayers and rural America. This vote shows that the Senators are not serious about cutting wasteful spending in the budget reconciliation, but would rather continue to be the champions for waste and corporate welfare in the farm subsidy system.
Since 1998, average annual farm payments have risen from $7 billion to $18 billion. The FY 2006 budget estimates farm subsidy spending will top $24 billion this year. Worse, farm payments have become increasingly concentrated, flowing to fewer and fewer individual farmers. According to the USDA, only 8 percent of producers receive 78 percent of subsidies. At the top of the subsidy food chain, huge corporate operations receive payments in the millions, while the average for 80 percent of farmers is under $1,000.
The Grassley-Dorgan-Clinton Amendment would have lowered the current farm payment limit from $360,000 to a $250,000 per farm-couple cap. More importantly, it would have closed loopholes that have historically made the present limit so porous as to be non-existent. The Grassley-Dorgan amendment would also have restored the bulk of funding to the non-trade distorting Conservation Reserve and Conservation Security Programs, both of which continue to be supported by President Bush.
The amendment was offered to the Deficit Reduction Reconciliation Act 2005 and was defeated 46-53. Due to budget reconciliation specific rules, a vote of 60 was necessary for passage. In previous years iterations of the Grassley-Dorgan amendment have passed the Senate only to be stripped in conference by the Agriculture Committees.
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