Why president obama should veto the farm bill

In two recent speeches, one on Dec. 4 about income inequality and the other on Tuesday night about the state of the union, President Obama said he was committed to fairness and equal opportunities. In the first speech, he said that inequality was “the defining challenge of our time,” and in the second, he said that he would use executive action to deal with it. So, we hope Mr. Obama will pick up the phone, call Congress, and tell them he’s getting ready to veto the 2014 farm bill. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that this strange way of making laws helps the rich and hurts the poor.

The horribly complicated bill is supposed to be a compromise that changes the way crop subsidy programmes work. It will cost $956 billion over 10 years, or just over $1 billion per page. It gets rid of a programme that gave billions of dollars in “direct payments” to farmers every year, no matter what they needed or their economic situation, and it gives farmers an incentive to take part in programmes that protect the soil.

But the bill mostly gives back to the ag lobby what it takes away from them. Over the next 10 years, getting rid of direct payments is expected to save $40.8 billion. The bill restores $27.2 billion of those savings through improved crop insurance subsidies and a new programme that “insures” against bad price changes. This federal handout, which is said to be needed to protect the nation’s food supply at a time when farm income is at an all-time high and obesity is a major problem, goes to people almost no matter how much money they already have. People with a gross adjusted income of up to $900,000 per year can get payments.

The bill also cuts $8.5 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor over the next 10 years. The cuts come from closing a “loophole,” but the “loophole” is just a way to save time on paperwork that mostly helps families in the Northeast who need help with their heating bills. One reason why every person in the Massachusetts House voted against the bill was because it would hurt too many people. Even so, the smaller cut to food stamps was better than the bigger cuts Republicans wanted. But it’s hard to swallow when it’s tied to so much corporate welfare, especially when that corporate welfare isn’t carefully based on how much money the company has.

The bill is expected to save $16.6 billion over ten years. This is a small amount compared to the $38 billion President Obama asked for in his fiscal 2014 budget, and the Congressional Budget Office says that two-thirds of this projected deficit reduction won’t happen until after 2019.

Farm lobbies have been fighting for two years, and lawmakers are tired of it. They want to pass this turkey and move on. President Obama can put an end to their suffering by signing it, or he can stick to his stated values by vetoing it.

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