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| The Farm Bill was, unsurprisingly, struck down. Image: Shutterstock |
Democrats and Republicans at least agree on one thing—the Farm Bill is terrible. The poster child for when lobbying goes too far, the Farm Bill has seen a series of failures in the last year, and last week’s vote against its passing wasn’t particularly surprising to anyone. The bill’s most recent appearance on the house floor included over 200 amendments to the massive law, which oversees agricultural policy as well as social welfare programs like food stamps to alleviate hunger and poverty. House Speaker John Boehner was quick to blame democrats upset at the cuts to food stamps, although 62 of the republicans voted against the bill as well.
Proposed amendments
included making special provisions for seniors, implement drug testing for
food stamp recipients, and prohibiting payments from the USDA to the Brazil
Cotton Institute. Most of the amendments
protect the interest of lobbying groups, but the biggest point of contention in
the new bill is the more than $20 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance programs. The cuts would put many Americans in dire
situations, and meanwhile agricultural subsidy proposals were shut down by
congress.
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| Republicans feel that impoverished people should work their way up in the world and not rely on govt. assistance. Image: Shutterstock |
While the general attitude for the cuts sounds off the
failures in the system that gives out hand-outs to irresponsible citizens
cheating the system, but the loss of assistance for 2 million families goes
beyond any unsavory participants.
The hypocrisy of
this attitude lies in the fact that many republicans feel that impoverished
people should work their way up in the world so that they do not rely on
government assistance. Meanwhile many
members of congress, especially in the agricultural committee, benefit from
farm subsidies. If a bill is not passed
soon it will revert to much older and largely irrelevant version, with some
provisions dating back to 1949.
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