opinions???...this was passed to me and I have no idea of the correctness of it.....but if it is accurate....what does it mean?? In 2008, the farm bill was passed as the Food, Conservation and Energy Act. The bill included approximately $100 billion in annual spending for Department of Agriculture programs, around 80 percent of which was allocated for food stamps and other nutritional programs.[6][8][9] President George W. Bush had vetoed the 2008 bill due to its size and cost. However, the veto was overridden by Congress.[10] The 2008 bill was also publicly controversial due to its high cost and the uneven distribution of subsidy money among farmers. The bill was 47 percent more expensive than the 2003 bill, and, over the previous ten years, 10 percent of farmers had received 75 percent of subsidy dollars. Some of these farm owners were then-members of Congress and other public figures, including former president Jimmy Carter, who received thousands of dollars in direct payments.[10][11] In 2007, it was found that about 62 percent of farmers do not receive subsidies from the farm bill.[7] In 2012, while writing the new farm bill, known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, Congress proposed many ways to cut down the overall cost of the bill, including stricter eligibility standards for food stamps and moving away from direct payments to farmers.[6] However, food stamps and nutrition remained the largest portion of the bills cost, amounting to a proposed $768.2 billion over ten years.[12] The 2012 bill ultimately failed to pass in the House, which caused Congress to extend the 2008 bill until September 30, 2013.[5][11] Between the passage of the 2008 farm bill and the creation of the 2013 bill, the food stamp program changed its name to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and nearly doubled in size.[13] The proposed 2013 bill would cut funding to SNAP by about $400 million a year, which amounts to half a percent of spending from previous years. It would also reduce the governments responsibility to pay crop insurance premiums for farmers with adjusted gross incomes of more than $750,000. The new bill also proposed a new insurance program for dairy producers which would cut costs by eliminating other dairy subsidies and price supports.[13]
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 06:21:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015