Page 13 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

At each step of the way, farm bill spending was a likely target.

By the end of July, Obama announced a deal with congressional leaders. The agreement
proposed a two-stage process. The first stage included $917 billion in spending cuts and other
deficit reduction now, as well as a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling.
In the second stage, a special joint congressional committee, known as the “Super Committee,”
was expected to recommend further deficit reduction steps totaling $1.2 trillion or more by the
end of November, with Congress obligated to vote on the proposals by the end of the year. Each
congressional committee was asked to submit recommendations to achieve deficit savings from
programs in their jurisdiction

If the recommendations were enacted, Obama would be authorized to increase the debt ceiling
by up to $1.5 trillion – as long as the additional deficit reduction steps exceeded that amount.
The president also could get the additional debt ceiling increase if both chambers of Congress
passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in votes to be held by the end of the
year.

However, Obama would be able to request only up to $1.2 trillion in additional debt ceiling if the
special congressional committee failed to agree to at least $1.2 trillion in cuts. At that point,
across-the-board spending cuts – split between defense spending and nondefense programs –
would be activated, equal to the difference between the committee’s recommendations and the
$1.2 trillion in additional debt ceiling.

At the Michigan Agri-Business Association’s annual meeting in early 2012, Stabenow
looked back to 2011, saying it was February when “we got a taste of how difficult it was
going to be to pass a farm bill when the House Republicans proposed their budget, calling for a
devastating $30 billion in cuts to commodities and crop insurance, $18 billion in cuts to
conservation, and $127 billion in cuts to nutrition. These cuts passed the House and almost every
Republican in the Senate supported them.

“Then we had negotiations between Vice President Biden and Congressman Eric Cantor that
called for up to $33 billion in cuts to production agriculture.

“President Obama's budget plan also called for $33 billion in cuts to agriculture, including
cuts to crop insurance – which, by the way, had already been cut.

“So that's where we were: from every direction, people have been calling for huge cuts to
production agriculture at a time when agriculture is one of the few bright spots in our economy.”
From that point on, there were few options: Stabenow, Roberts, Lucas and Peterson rolled up
their sleeves and went to work on their “Super Committee” assignment.

“The four of us decided that, rather than having others decide what should happen regarding
agriculture policy, we ought to be proposing deficit reduction cuts that make sense for
agriculture,” Stabenow explained.

Sources close to those discussions told Agri-Pulse that the impact of what the Super
Committee process in 2011 did in terms of shaping what became the 2014 farm bill cannot
be overstated.

www.Agri-Pulse.com 11