The Farm Bill finally hits the fast track this week in Washington. This flurry of action does not come as a result of Congresswoman Kristi Noem's efforts, which consist mostly of fallacious reasoning on global trade and assertions that farm subsidies are a national security issue.
No, Congress is moving the Farm Bill because they think they have more interesting things to work on. Dems want to get to immigration reform:
The reason the bills are moving seems to be that each chamber has gotten tired of the farm bill hanging on and has something more interesting to move on to. Reid has told the Senate that he wants the farm bill passed in May because he wants to devote June to immigration reform. Since exit polls showed that President Obama’s election percentage in rural America went from 50 percent in 2008 to 41 percent in 2012, while Hispanic voters have become the new hope of the Democratic Party, it seems that Reid has a logical reason to get the farm bill done quickly and move on to something that interests more Democratic voters. Agricultural employers will encourage this movement, too, since they are promoting provisions for immigrant farm workers and meat-company employees that are included in the immigration-reform bill [Jerry Hagstrom, "Congress Poised to Move on Farm Bill," National Journal via Yahoo, 2013.05.13].
Meanwhile, Republicans will hurry through the farm bill with some malicious and misdirected mischief so they can get to pleasing their moneyed base:
The House and Senate Agriculture committees wrote the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which so deregulated the futures industry that it played a major role in the 2008 financial crisis. Those committees also wrote Title VII of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which gave the CFTC new regulatory powers and for the first time regulated the high-earning swaps industry. The financial-services industry hates the Dodd-Frank Act and is chomping at the bit to restrict the CFTC’s ability to finalize some of the regulations the agency has proposed.
...Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee seem to love to compete to cut food stamps. Lucas has called for a $20 billion cut over 10 years in the farm bill, while other proposals would cut as much as $36 billion. But it’s really more fun to sit around and help out the well-dressed financial-services executives, especially when they bring along those generous campaign contribution checks [Hagstrom, 2013.05.13].
Maybe Dakota War College should spend less time making stuff up about Democrats and more time asking Kristi Noem how she likes being the less interesting sibling in Congress.
More here:
http://www.progressive.org/farm-bill-fiasco
How Wall Street Defanged Dodd-Frank:
http://www.thenation.com/article/174113/how-wall-street-defanged-dodd-frank
So does it get passed or held up by Tea Party members in the House?
Mike, I'll speculate then when the GOP and Dem leadership are both committed to moving a bill for purely practical reasons, the Tea Party is powerless to stop them. The Tea Party only has a shot at winning ideological fights. They won't get Kristi to vote against whatever rush-job comes out this week. The Teabaggers won't have the good sense to recruit Dems concerned about the sustainability issues raised in the really good Progressive article Larry gives us above. The train is rolling, and it'll take more than Teabags to stop it.
Update here:
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2012/03/farm-subsidy-jackpot