Farm Bill awaits President’s signature

by | Dec 13, 2018 | 5 Ag Stories, News

TEXT: House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway’s floor speech

TEXT: House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin Peterson’s floor speech

Dustin Hoffman, Anna Hastert and myself were watching how quickly the two houses moved on the farm bill after months of politics, roadblocks and slow acceptance of reality by Republicans who wanted to make it a welfare reform bill and Democrats who wanted to make it welfare expansion legislation.

In the end, the bill will cost 870-billion-dollars.

It again was a masterful job of horse trading. Both sides got most of what they wanted.

In 2008, I wrote a column with a headline: ?Is this the last farm bill?? There were a lot of reasons for the farm and food factions to not come together again. Grudgingly, they did in 2014 and grudgingly, they did again this time.

When it comes down to it, this bill has such a big constituency – from farmers to the 12-percent of Americans who receive welfare benefits to all the lovers of our national forests to the food inspection system across the country. There is no alternative to passing the next five-year guarantee with almost a trillion dollars attached and move on.

Ben Nuelle, now a reporter for Agri-Pulse based in Washington, summarizes what happened yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives.

AUDIO: Profit Matters 12-13-18