For weeks, leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have lobbied for their stalled farm bills that cut farm and food program spending to be included in any deals between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans aimed at staving off billions of dollars in spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to go into effect early next year.
In June, the Senate passed a $969 billion farm bill that saved $23 billion over 10 years by cutting several farm subsidies and nutrition programs. The House Agriculture Committee has passed its version of the bill, which saves even more: about $35 billion over 10 years. The full House has not scheduled the bill for a vote.
“The farm bill is the only bipartisan deficit reduction bill that passed the Senate this year. It’s only natural it should be part of a larger deficit reduction agreement,” Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said last week.
But a new analysis of previous spending on farm bills shows that the proposed bills might actually add to the deficit.
The analysis by the Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington research group, shows that the last two farm bills, in 2002 and 2008, exceeded their original price tags by billions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office, which provides cost estimates for legislation, calculated the savings in both bills.
“But taking a look at the C.B.O. scoring track record, it’s pretty clear they aren’t exactly the ‘Farmer’s Almanac’ when it comes to farm bills,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of the taxpayer group.
Mr. Ellis points out that the 2002 farm bill was supposed to cost $451 billion, according to the budge office’s original calculations. But the bill ended up costing $587 billion. The 2008 farm bill had an original price tag of $604 billion, but ended up costing $912 billion
The taxpayer group said that with the worst drought in 50 years expected to drive up the cost of farm programs like crop insurance, there is reason to believe that the most current farm bill could easily exceed $1 trillion and wipe out any savings. Crop insurance, which was supposed to be about $9 billion a year, according to the budget office projections last year, is already on pace to exceed $20 billion this year, due to the effect of the drought.
“It would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility to cram a trillion dollar piece of legislation into a fiscal cliff package. Only Washington would try call a trillion dollars in spending ‘deficit reduction,’” Mr. Ellis said
A spokesman for Ms. Stabenow said the new Senate version of the farm bill would make changes that would achieve savings, like eliminating $5 billion in so-called direct payments that are given to farmers or landowners whether or not they grow crops. The House bill also eliminates the payments.
“The C.B.O. determined that the bill we came up with achieves true savings,” said Cullen Schwarz, the spokesman. “The C.B.O. is the ultimate arbiter of the cost of legislation, not Taxpayers for Common Sense.”
Written By: Ron Nixon
Original Publication URL: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/politics/debt-reckoning.html#sha=0d6148702
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