The recent farm provisions proposed by the GOP-led House of Representatives should give all Americans pause.
I should know. For the last 50 years, including the 18 that I served as Montana’s U.S. senator, my wife, Sharla, and I have been farming the same land that my grandparents homesteaded in northcentral Montana more than 100 years ago. We know firsthand the challenges of the weather, markets and input costs. We live it every day.
Bipartisan legislation is typically more thoughtful, resilient and more likely to stand the test of time.
So I was especially troubled to see that House GOP leadership and Republicans in the House Agriculture Committee ignored decades of tradition and did not bother to gain bipartisan support for their farm bill proposals. Why is this important? Because bipartisan legislation is typically more thoughtful, resilient and more likely to stand the test of time. Remember, Republicans aren’t right all the time and Democrats aren’t wrong all the time.
In a press release, Rep. G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania claims his committee’s section of the House’s new reconciliation bill is “strengthening the farm safety net and delivering critical support to the farmers, workers, and communities that keep America fed.” I argue it’s a prime example of one-sided, partisan deal-making.
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And Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., agrees. “Instead of working with Democrats to lower costs from President Trump’s across-the-board tariffs, House Republicans have decided to pull the rug out from under families by cutting the SNAP benefits that 42 million Americans rely on to put food on the table — all to fund a tax cut for billionaires. That’s shameful,” said Klobuchar, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Klobuchar continues:
This means more seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and children will go to bed hungry. It means farmers, who are already operating on razor-thin margins, will see billions in lost revenue. It will mean job losses and lost wages for everyone who is a part of the food system — from truck drivers to local grocers. And ultimately, these cuts threaten the Farm Bill coalition that has delivered bipartisan support for farmers, families and rural communities for decades, and will make it harder for Congress to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill.
Typically, to get a broad-based bipartisan legislation passed that receives support from both rural and urban America, the Agriculture Committee would work to address both food insecurity — often but not always a bigger issue in urban areas — and family farm agricultural production — which tends to be more tied to rural America. This current House effort does neither.
First, and in typical Washington politician fashion, House Republicans have pushed more SNAP food assistance costs onto the states, which will result in more hungry people and, in turn, result in Washington blaming the states for the SNAP reductions.
Secondly, Republicans seem intent on making farmers more reliant on subsidies from the federal government. Every farmer I know vastly prefers getting their paycheck from the marketplace, not the government or the American taxpayer. But this bill will increase farm subsidies while reducing the SNAP program.
It also will do little to increase competition in a highly consolidated marketplace, which would decrease costs for consumers and benefit farmers. We need competition in agriculture for capitalism to work. Let’s enforce anti-trust violations and add enforcement language with real teeth.
Perhaps most alarmingly, those same House Republicans who decry socialism on one hand are pushing American farmers to take more money from the government and less from the marketplace. That sounds a lot like socialism to me. To say nothing of the fact that reducing SNAP, in addition to hurting hungry people, will reduce demand for farm commodities — yet another negative impact on the market.
And while Republicans in Congress are pushing what amounts to an anti-farmer agenda, the Trump administration’s tariffs haven’t gone away. And a resulting trade war will have devastating effects on agriculture production. Agricultural organizations and exporters have said as much. And so have individual farmers.
House Republicans want to push through their reconciliation bill as quickly as possible. And they don’t seem to care whether it’s actually good for the American people. My advice would be to go back to the drawing board. Maybe then, they could actually come up with a modern proposal for the 21st century that would both help feed our nation and boost our agricultural production.
Farms, and farmers, are integral to the health and prosperity of our citizens and our economy. Republicans love to pay lip service to rural voters, and farmers especially. But actions speak louder than words. I should know.
