CCAGW Urges Veto of Farm Bill

Washington, D.C. - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today again denounced the conference report of H.R. 2419, the 2008 Farm Bill.

“H.R. 2419 fails to provide any significant reform,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “With 2008 net farm income forecast to be $92 billion (51 percent above its 10-year average) this should have been the perfect opportunity to provide real reform of farm policy.  Instead, the Farm Bill simply continues the present system that doles out huge payments to wealthy farmers whether they are needed or not.”

• It provides little improvement to means testing or payment limits.  Married couples with an adjusted gross income of $1.5 million will still receive subsidies.  The payment limit level of $360,000 was not reduced.
• It continues to dole out $5.2 billion annually in direct payments to individuals (many of whom are no longer farming) without any regard to prices or income.  These direct payments, 60 percent of which go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients, were created in 1996 and were supposed to phase out by 2002.
• It creates a new “permanent disaster fund” worth $3.8 billion - a disaster for taxpayers, most farmers, and the environment.  This will encourage planting on disaster-prone land, plus most payments will go to the same producers already receiving the bulk of the direct payments.
• It increases the support price for sugar, reserves 85 percent of the U.S. market for domestic producers and creates a new sugar ethanol program.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this new program will cost taxpayers $1.3 billion over ten years, although the real cost is likely to exceed $4 billion.  The consumer costs of the sugar program will exceed $2 billion annually.
• It adds earmarks such as $5 million for grants to broadcasting systems inserted by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), $3 million for Delta Health Alliance Grants inserted by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), and $1 million for the National Sheep and Goat Industry Improvement Center inserted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

###