The reason for
the Combest/Stenholm bipartisan push was pure political opportunism
plus fear the surplus would disappear. A new period of austerity
might have led to greater questioning of whether adding another $73
billion in subsidies (an outrageous 65 percent increase!) to the
already-existing $95 billion 10-year base was really
prudent.
And worse,
Combest and Stenholm had the audacity to claim their actions were
"budget conscious." Conscious of the need to grab as much of the
budget for their favored special interests is more like it. H.R.
2646 represents a dramatic backward step in farm policy. Gone is any
pretense of ever getting farmers off the dole. It not only
subsidizes the same old products and restores subsidies Congress had
actually managed to eliminate in the past, it also creates new
subsidies for products that have never before been
subsidized.
Combest and
Stenholm worked like Siamese twins to squelch efforts to modestly
reform the archaic sugar program, a program of little benefit to the
vast majority of farmers, with at least 40 percent of all program
benefits going to just the wealthiest one percent of sugar farms.
The dynamic duo went into high gear to defeat an amendment to shift
funding from the largest, wealthiest cotton and rice farmers to
conservation efforts. They also pulled out all the stops to defeat
an amendment to close a loophole allowing the largest farmers to
circumvent payment limits.
Never before has
there been a ten-year farm bill, but the Farm Security Act is an
effective way to lock in record-high farm spending so it can't be
touched. According to the Bush Administration, this will limit
flexibility to address the rapidly changing agriculture sector over
the next decade.
For pushing a
farm bill at this time when there is no need for it, for boosting
federal spending at a time of great uncertainty, for taking a
dramatic backward step in farm policy, and for directing handouts to
the wealthiest farmers instead of those most in need, it would be
difficult to find any two members of Congress more deserving of the
title Co-Porkers of the Month for October 2001 than Reps. Combest
and Stenholm.
Citizens
Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
