Late-Night Shenanigans in the House 07/11/2013 The House leadership appears to be pulling a fast one on the American public and even fellow House members when it comes to the farm bill. The House has split up the farm-related programs and food stamps, which is great news. However, they didn’t make a single reform. That’s not the worst part, though. Every five years or so, Congress passes a new farm bill. The entire purpose of this reauthorization process is for Congress to fix the law if problems exist. The House appears to be doing away with this process for many of the most costly farm program provisions. As a result, bad public policy could be locked in indefinitely. House leaders have sold this flawed farm-related bill in part by getting rid of existing "permanent law." So it may surprise many that the bill would just replace this existing permanent law with new permanent law that may even be broader in scope. Further, the House introduced the text of its farm-only bill last night, and current plans are to vote on the bill as soon as mid-morning today. They are rushing it through the process and not giving members a chance to offer amendments, properly review the bill, or even determine the extent of this potential bait and switch when it comes to permanent law. farmRecipe_v3 This flawed bill simply brings the same troublesome farm programs up for a vote that were considered and soundly rejected by the House a few weeks ago.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 16:49:03 +0000
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