Page 15 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was cut by nearly $12 billion in the last
Congress to offset other spending. In addition, there are also 37 programs, totaling nearly $10
billion, which expire and have no baseline into future years.

“When the 2008 farm bill was enacted, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had estimated
the total cost of the farm bill at $284 billion over five years (FY2008-FY2012) and $604 billion
over 10 years (FY2008-FY2017), including existing programs and changes enacted, according to
the Congressional Research Service. These costs reflect mandatory outlays, not those subject to
appropriations.”

But the Super Committee also hurt – especially in the Senate – because numerous members felt
they had been cut out of the negotiations, recalled a source familiar with the process.
“It unintentionally created a trust factor that would never fully be overcome for the next 13
months,” the source told Agri-Pulse.

Post Super Committee

Over the course of just a couple of months, a new farm bill had been written in strict secrecy…
and then it was scrapped. The work on the 2012 bill, became 2011 all over again – with even
more unique twists to come.

The Super Committee process was helpful, aides said, because it laid out a lot of the
program groundwork and the division of cuts. But it hurt – especially in the House –
because the established parameters became points for future negotiations.

Indeed, members and advocacy groups who had been looking for even bigger changes were left
unfulfilled and looked for more ways to cut.

Just a few weeks before the Super Committee recommendations were presented by the ag
committee leaders, part of the Indiana congressional delegation was ready to weigh in with an
even bigger farm bill cut – much to the dismay of several of their brethren.
On. Oct. 6, 2011, Dick Lugar, a former Senate Ag Committee chair, partnered with fellow
Hoosier and fourth generation farmer, Rep. Marlin Stutzman, to introduce a measure that they
claimed would cut the farm bill by $40 billion.

Among other things, they said the Lugar-Stutzman bill would end direct payments to farmers,
counter-cyclical payments, the ACRE program and marketing assistance/loan deficiency
payments.

For Stutzman, first elected in 2010, it was a chance to make his debut as a reformer. But he
didn’t plan to stop there. He went on to hone his budget-cutting credentials with the Heritage
Foundation and their political arm, Heritage Action. He would later champion efforts to split the
“farm” from the “food” portions of the farm bill in an effort to dramatically reform both.

Farm groups scramble for alternatives

As the dust settled on the Super Committee’s colossal failure, farm organizations had already
been scrambling to figure out what to offer up next.

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