It’s disappointing we couldn’t get the Republican Farm bill voted out of the House today. After numerous congressional audits, hearings, and investigations, we know these programs are spinning out of control, have quadrupled in cost, and are often scammed. We need to fix our broken agriculture and nutrition assistance programs. It’s not a perfect bill; no bill is. But now we are stuck with New Deal-era policies that include government price controls on crops, food-stamp fraud and benefits for non-citizens. The bill targeted needed resources to put these programs back on track, guaranteeing only those who qualify for nutrition assistance receive it and those who don’t qualify stop getting government assistance. It stopped states from using backdoor methods to enroll people who didn’t qualify. It had new anti-fraud requirements that would stop lottery winners and those with hidden assets from taking advantage of a program established to help families and children in need. And it created a verification process on the immigration status of food-stamp applicants to ensure illegal aliens and undocumented persons are not enrolled. This bill would also have put an end to the outrageous practice of global agricultural companies collecting taxpayer subsidies; instead, this bill established a safety net for small family farms, like those throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania, through a crop-insurance program. The bill also contained a provision so dairy farmers – like those in Southwestern Pennsylvania – can produce and sell milk to meet market demand without government supply restrictions that artificially increase prices for consumers. The failure of the bill on the floor today means we don’t move forward on negotiations for much-needed reforms, we just keep funding a broken-down system of fraud, handouts and waste. Take a look at the Key Vote Alert I sent out last night for further details and let me know what you think: bit.ly/14MRVkM
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 22:15:06 +0000
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