The House Agriculture Committee has called on Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to spare the fiscal 2012 budget for farm programs from major spending cuts, citing projected crop-insurance savings and spending reductions in other areas.
The Agriculture panel approved a "views and estimates" letter to Ryan on March 15, which stated that agriculture had paid its budgetary dues. The panel said it will spend most of this year setting program and funding priorities for new farm legislation to replace the current farm law. The letter includes arguments to counter calls by the Obama administration and others to cut nearly $5 billion a year in direct payments to farmers, money that some argue is wasteful spending at a time of record high farm income.
In the letter to Ryan, House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) says: "While agriculture and its related industries constitute 4.6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, the farm safety net now constitutes less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the federal budget and roughly 13 percent of USDA's budget.... Some may argue that the current agriculture economy and farm prices are strong and therefore now would be a good time to cut our agriculture policies even further — but this conclusion ignores lessons from history. The agriculture economy is highly cyclical."
The letter details as contributions to lower spending USDA's projected $6 billion in savings over 10 years from limits on administrative and operating costs for federally subsidized crop insurance; and $7.5 billion in reductions to mandatory spending on conservation, rural development, trade, research and energy programs from FY 2003 to 2010.
One program the letter offers as a possible area for some reduction is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the food stamp program. The panel said it might not continue the boost in monthly benefits for SNAP participants when they expire Nov. 1, 2013.
SNAP, which accounts for around three-quarters of USDA's budget, got an across-the-board increase in monthly benefits under the 2009 stimulus. The temporary increase was initially slated to end in fiscal 2018, but Congress already has tapped $14.4 billion of that increase to aid states with Medicaid, to help school districts avoid teacher layoffs, and to reauthorize and expand federal child-nutrition programs. As a result, the SNAP benefits increases will expire earlier than originally scheduled.
The letter from Lucas may not get much sympathy from Ryan, who voted in the 110th Congress for unsuccessful amendments to the House version of the 2008 farm bill that would have tightened income eligibility limits and reduced direct payments. And he cited direct payments when he spoke in support of President George W. Bush's veto of the final bill, which Congress twice overrode.
