Why Everyone Hates the Farm Bill (Except Not Really)

Well, Facebook is down and that apparently makes me a 100% more prolific blogger.

Yes, I just said that Facebook is down. Ok, don't go check--the truth is that it was only down for 5 minutest earlier this evening.

But nothing like the Farm Bill to bring a girl back to blogging. You can take the girl out of AFE, but you can't take the AFE out of the girl. Ya hear that @katmerrigan and @ashleyrdtx?
The House is expected to take up the Farm Bill tomorrow, or more accurately to take up "its" farm bill, which is different than the one the Senate passed earlier this month.

Most folks have probably heard about the major SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) cuts in the House bill, which are way bigger than the substantial SNAP cuts passed in the Senate bill, and amount to $20 billion which is equivalent to half of the total amount the federal government pays towards food banks and food charities, according to Bittman.

But did you know that nobody, and absolutely nobody likes the House Farm Bill? Well, according to the NYTimes, at least. Not the liberals (which I can validate from what I've been reading on my email feed and hearing in the halls of my office), not the conservatives, not the agricultural economists. And judging by the fact that the President issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) threatening to veto it, not the centrists either.

So, you might wonder, how could a bill dreadful enough to be panned by Agriculture Economists round the country (that's a joke, people. Ag Economists notoriously hate most policy proposals that have a shred of political viability) have enough of a chance of passing that the Speaker would dare put it on the House floor?

Any student of Farm Bill history could answer that one. Pork. And lots of it. And by pork I mean, catfish, temperate japonica rice (aka sushi), christmas trees, alfalfa, marble, and a whole lotta crop insurance. And not to imply that my side is immune to said pork, you'd also get incentives for the consumption of fruits and vegetables by low-income individuals, efforts to increase participation of small scale farmers in federal nutrition programs, and a review of the public health benefits of white potatoes on low-income Americans (actually, I'm not sure who that last one is to appease-- the "potato" people or the "low-income Americans" people).

And just to make you feel like you live in an even saner country, when the House debated this afternoon on the "rule" for how the Farm Bill will be considered when it comes to the floor--meaning how open the debate and allowances for amendments will be--it simultaneously was considering a bill "to protect pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes."