U.S. Congressman Mike Conaway outlined several current issues being addressed in Washington Friday at the Brown County Republican Women’s luncheon at the Brownwood Country Club including the farm bill with versions passed recently in the house and senate.
Conaway addressed the status of the farm bill which was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in a 216-208 vote on July 11th and a Senate version passing on June 10th.
“I think we will get the farm bill done, I don’t think we will get it done until the end of September,” Conaway said. “The process of working out the differences with the Senate bill and the House bill, I think the bill will wind up closer to the House version than the Senate.”
The farm bill is the primary agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government. The comprehensive bill is passed every 5 years or so by the United States Congress and deals with both agriculture and all other affairs under the purview of the United States Department of Agriculture.
“Hopefully we will have a five year program in place that provides that safety net that production agriculture needs but is also respectable of where we are financially for this country,” Conaway said.
“This bill authorizes spending at a level that is $19 billion less than what the previous bill has been; $6 billion of that is required cuts and the other $12 billion is just money that we decided not to spend,” he said. “It’s respectable to taxpayers and where we find ourselves and keep production agriculture in rural America in the fight.”One major difference between the House and Senate versions of the bill is that the House separated the nutrition component of the bill that includes the food stamp program.
“The version that came out of the House Ag Committee was a bipartisan piece of legislation between the Republicans and Democrats that reduced spending on food stamps by $20 billion over the next 10 years; a relatively modest amount,” Conaway said. “We spend $80 billion a year on food stamps that this would have trimmed it by $2 billion.”
The initial proposal failed on the House floor but was revised and was approved in the House in a narrow margin last month.
“All of those reforms that were amended in the House, that version is our starting point,” Conaway said. “We will add two other really good policy issues to the table, and yes it will reduce spending but the focus is not so much on that as it is what’s good for our country.”
Conaway said that there are over 47 million people on food stamps today and the House version of the nutrition component of the farm bill is geared towards getting some people off of food stamps and into the workforce.
“Much of what this administration had done is continue to contribute to that growth (in food stamps),” Conaway said. “Ten percent of those on food stamps are qualified as able-body adults with no dependents, under the age of 50 with no requirement to find a job. We want to put a work requirement on able-body adults under the age of 50. Another category would be able-body adults under the age of 50 with one dependent with adequate childcare.”
Removing these groups from food stamps would eliminate another $20 billion from the nutrition part of the farm bill, according to Conaway.
He said that he is unsure if the two aspects of the farm bill would eventually be passed separately or as a package.
“My intuition is that we will wind up with just the farm bill piece,” Conaway said. “The reason the food stamp piece probably won’t pass, get signed by the president, is that food stamps are considered an appropriated entitlement. That means that the system says that we are always going to have food stamps. Unless Congress makes a specific change to that program, we are going to just keep funding it as is.”
The current farm bill expires at the end of September and both House and Senate leaders intend to have something on the President’s desk before that time.
U.S. Representative K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas) is serving his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and represents 29 counties in Texas’ 11th congressional district, including the cities of Midland, Odessa, Brownwood and San Angelo. He is chairman of the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management.
Pictured at top: Conaway (left) talks to several guest after the luncheon Friday.
