House Republicans narrowly passed a farm bill on Thursday that was stripped of hundreds of billions in funding for food stamps, abandoning four decades of precedent to gain the backing of conservative lawmakers.
The 216 to 208 vote was a victory for a Republican caucus that has struggled to pass the most basic of legislation, but it also set up weeks of acrimony and uncertainty as House and Senate leaders must reconcile two vastly different visions for providing subsidies to farmers and feeding the hungry.
Against that backdrop, the two chambers must hash out a farm bill by the end of September or policy will revert to a 1949 law that could lead to steep price increases on everyday items such as milk.
How in the hell do we, as a nation, separate out farms from feeding the hungry? The farm bills in the past have all been coupled with food stamp programs that feed the the poor. Step over women, there is also a war on the poor, especially the most vulnerable Americans, the children. Approximately 80% of past farm bills have been for the food stamp program. Around 48 million Americans rely on this program for nutrition.
A few Republicans voted against this farm bill. No Democrats voted for it.
One can’t help but wonder how a party that claims to be so pro-life can justify cutting off nutritional resources to the poor children of America? The hypocrisy is simply overwhelming and staggering to contemplate. Shame!
I read it this morning and could not figure out how you seperate the main USDA bill – the Farm Bill – from the various food programs right down to when the Government has an overstock of milk products (cheese, butter, etc), they give it away to various entities. Alas, it is much the same with many other of the social-type programs: everything is connected and you cannot limit one without breaking the interrelated/associated programs.
Apparently, even a twenty billion dollar cut to food stamps wasn’t good enough for some of the GOP. Yet they were fine with INCREASING the subsidies to big agra. The majority of food stamps go to feed children and the elderly.
What was that someone said about the 47% never voting for the GOP? I wonder why!!!
No kidding, middleman. It really is shameful, isn’t it?
A previous Sunday WaPo (July 6) had an article about Greenville,Tennessee that was concerned about kids who normally get free meals at school (often breakfast and lunch) not having meals available during the summer. The article noted that better than 1 in 4 kids depend on the government for food. They are providing one 750 calorie meal a day (the government recommendation) for these kids through the summer. The article is here if you missed it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-rural-tennessee-a-new-way-to-help-hungry-children-a-bus-turned-bread-truck/2013/07/06/c93c5eec-e292-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html?hpid=z1
Some interesting comments were made by readers, often wondering why these people don’t have gardens of some sort. If you don’t have enough money to feed your children, how do you have enough to buy seeds to plant anything? In addition, it looks like these folks live in a run down trailer park where a garden probably is against the rules.
There seems to be no end to the lengths the Tea Party Republicans won’t go. I wonder how they would feel if someone shut down the House dining facilities, which I understand is quite nice and inexpensive. There are 10 such facilities for the House. Go here to see the menus: http://radining.compass-usa.com/ushouse/Pages/Home.aspx
There are 9 dining facilities for the Senate: http://radining.compass-usa.com/ussenate/Pages/Menu.aspx?Type=Menu
Here are the nutritional standards for the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. Very interesting: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/Legislation/dietaryspecs.pdf
@George S. Harris
The prices at those dining facilities are real bargains. I challenge anyone to find local cafes or restaurants with such variety and prices. A lot of hungry children would probably be envious of the spread our gluttonous pols enjoy. The WaPo should shame the House by publishing the menus.
Hungry kids don’t learn, both long term and short term. Poorly nurished kids’ brains don’t develop to their full potential. Throw in just being hungry and you aren’t going to pass your math test.
Then we blame teachers for failing schools, especially in poverty areas.
Then there is the ‘eat what you know’ syndrome. Poor kids who haven’t been exposed to balanced diets of fruit an vegetables often turn up their noses and revert back to moon pies and RC because its what they know.
Anything that encourages decent nutrition is an investment in the future.
So obviously this fact has escaped one side of the house. Are these greedy bastards so privileged that they don’t know any of this about nutrition?
These are the people that a contributor wants me to listen to about abortion? These clowns obviously care nothing about human life post birth or the food stamp component of the Farm Bill would not have been stripped.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/modestproposal/summary.html
Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal” is a satire written over
two hundred years ago in another time of dark hearted
economic reasoning and self-righteous moral posturing.
Alas, wouldn’t be surprised to see House Republicans
draft a bill based on it next week.
PJ O’Rourke: “Farm policy, although it’s complex, can be explained. What it can’t be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, DC, videotaped in flagrante delicto has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.”
They didn’t KILL anything. The Food Stamp bill will be considered separately.
But the Farm bill is a monstrosity and needed to be killed. The House lied and broke its own rules to pass it.
It has always been a part of the FArm Bill. The Food Stamp component wasn’t included. That says killed to me.
Unless of course, killed isn’t killed.
So what do you think ‘the house’ lied about?
This event illustrates how thin and feebly held “conservative” principles are now among our elected representatives. Virtually everyone of both parties is for big government, big handouts, big deficits, big raids on the citizens’ pockets, big programs, etc. etc. as long as the beneficiaries are the right beneficiaries. Rs, Ds, whatever. They all like throwing around other people’s money. The labels – conservative, liberal, progressive, tea party – are all just marketing ploys to win votes from the weak-minded and the lazy thinkers. Only 12 Rs voted against this. Only 12.
@Moon-howler
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/11/what-the-house-farm-bills-passage-means/
And now you know why the GOP is the target of the Tea Party, not the Democrats.
@Scout
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/farm-bill-vote-house-93119.html
62 GOP voted against the House bill.
The odd part that all Democrats voted no and those politicians probably had polar opposite reasons for voting no.
I would say that both Democrats and GOP might be the target. Here is my problem with that. The tea party needs to man up and have their own party rather than back stabbing Republicans from within. They need to have the courage not to call themselves Republicans.
They are arriving to the party on someone else’s ride.
The tea party needs to man up and have their own party rather than back stabbing Republicans from within. They need to have the courage not to call themselves Republicans.
Amen! They’re just too cheap or afraid to do it. (Or their big money bags think their goals can be accomplished by having the Teabaggers within the Republican party…better to have an angry base than little base at all.)
I really see it as party take over. The Religious Right tried that several decades ago. The corrupted the party in my opinion. I like my wall of separation high and unbreeched.
The Tea Party is going after the Republicans that only pay lip service. The Tea Party is merely holding the GOP accountable for their own words.
Otherwise, you have Democrats and Democrats light.
I have to beg to differ. I have seen some very conservative candidates blasted by so called ‘tea party.’ Seriously, why don’t you all just call yourselves thugs. That’s what it is. nuclear blasting. Good governance involves a little give and take. I would venture to say that you are either a Republican or you aren’t. Cut the hyphenated name.
I make no secret that I absolutely HATE the tea party and their idea of government and three cornered hat mentality and orgasmic relationship to the Constitution which is simply a document. It’s not the holy grail. I am not alone. So do most people. Consider tea party a flash in the pan. It won’t last.
As for Democrat lite. I call bullshit.
I don’t see the Tea Party as having any particular affinity for the Republican Party. They are something separate and apart. There is some overlap in rhetoric, but the dividing line is that the pols know that it is generally nonsense, but find it useful to make these noises to harvest votes, while the Tea Party people are, at least largely, sincere, but generally so uninformed about the world that they have trouble dealing with real world situations and are often unaware of when they’re being played by the pols.
@Cargo: thanks for the correction. I’ll have to go back and figure out where my misinformation came from. There was an article in the Post with a table that listed twelve Rs. I think I mis-remembered what their significance was. This is why I let newspapers pile up to about a foot high before I pitch them.
One thing that I do think I remember correctly is that all the Virginia Rs voted for this piece of manure Ag bill. The good Mr. Cantor was a leading force behind it. What a lib!
Here is what is evident to me. Save a fetus, let a born child go hungry.
@Scout
Cantor is a typical Republican. Not a conservative Tea Party type.
He LIKES big government as long as HE’s got influence in it.
My point exactly, CS. But he has no problem winding around the legs of the TP types and mouthing TP bromides. It’s a trove of cheap votes if you can talk the talk.
The Tea Party thrives on intimidation. They’re wresting for control of the party and the money, of course. This is a corporate takeover not the evolution of a third party.
Hey CS: I accepted your correction too quickly. The correct number of Republicans voting against the Farm Bill was 12 after all. I finally got back into that pile of old newspapers. I think your 62 number comes from the earlier vote in June when the combined food stamp/subsidy bill went down in flames.
Nonetheless, I appreciate any effort to keep things on a factual even keel.