THE LAND — JULY 22/JULY 29, 2022
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Our money, their mouth, your choice If the political polls are to be believed, The Blueprint also urges big tax cuts, November’s midterm election will sweep deep cuts in environmental oversight, today’s Democrats out of power in the U.S. greater defense spending, and privatizaHouse of Representatives and put tion of federal agencies like the Animal Republicans back in charge. Plant Health Inspection Service. If accurate, House Republicans will have Yes, that’s right: no milk program,” no a splendid opportunity to put your tax “sugar program,” and no CRP. money where their collective mouth is by Also, no federal crop insurance other implementing their highly detailed, littlethan a “catastrophic” policy where publicized “Blueprint to Save America,” a farmers would pay 70 percent of the 122-page, “alternate budget” introduced by FARM & FOOD FILE premium, not today’s 40 percent. the House Republican Study Committee By Alan Guebert And, yes, remove all “nutrition pro(RSC) June 9. grams”–programs like the vast If you’re a small government/fiscal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance conservative, the Blueprint is 200-proof Program – from the Farm Bill that catnip. It attacks dozens of government programs would give every non-rural, non-farming House as either “socialist,” “radical” or “insidious” and member the perfect reason to never vote for any wastes little ink on ways to reform any. Instead, its Farm Bill again. favorite alternative is the ax and its prescribed fix Coincidence or not, two weeks after the Blueprint is either complete elimination or deep program cuts. went public the decidedly not conservative and not This is especially true when the Blueprint starts happy Environmental Working Group (EWG) swinging at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its released its own analysis of recent federal farm profarm and ranch support programs. For example, under gram spending. the deeply red Blueprint, the RSC–of which four out of It, too, was a stunner because it agrees with the five House Republicans are members–would: GOP Blueprint’s key assertion: farm program spend–“Remove nutrition programs from the Farm Bill.” ing is out of control. The problem, however, claimed –Eliminate the nation’s two, “duplicative,” federal the EWG, was the last Republican in the White crop insurance programs to save “$42.7 billion over House–not today’s CRP, not crop insurance, not the 10 years.” milk or sugar programs, and certainly not SNAP. –Replace both with a single program whose “sub“The government paid a record $41.6 billion in a sidies (would be) 30 percent” instead of today’s “60 variety of subsidies to farmers in 2020,” reported percent” and “would only be offered to pay for cata- the Food & Environment Reporting Network in strophic policies.” reviewing the EWG’s analysis, “double the amount they received in 2018, when the Trump-era cash –And “phase out the Sugar Program,” “prohibit gusher began flowing…” new enrollments in the Conservation Reserve Program” (to effectively kill CRP in 10 years) and And, FERN went on, “...farmers received a comend the “Conservation Stewardship Program.” bined $91.6 billion in 2018, 2019, and 2020 from crop insurance, traditional crop supports, trade war Additionally, the GOP House group would “elimiassistance, and pandemic relief,” under the Trump nate the Milk Program,” “prohibit funding for Administration that few–if any–Congressional National School Lunch Standards,” eliminate “the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account,” Republicans or Democrats even questioned. and dismantle “ McGovern-Dole International Food If you add in 2021 data, direct farm program payfor Education Program.” ments for the most recent four years total $115.5 billion. That means 29 percent of all net farm income And that’s just a start and just USDA.
OPINION
earned by farmers, ranchers, and landowners between 2018 and 2021 came from U.S. taxpayers. Little wonder House Republicans consider USDA a ripe target for spending cuts. Or do they? If put in charge, would Republicans really cut crop insurance, gut CRP, and eliminate the dairy and sugar programs or is the Blueprint more baloney than beef? Who knows, but when most House Republicans and the Environmental Working Group agree that farm program spending is out of control, farmers and ranchers might have a problem. The Farm and Food File is published weekly through the United States and Canada. Past columns, events and contact information are posted at www.farmandfoodfile.com. v
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