WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is voting on passage of a five year, half-trillion dollar farm bill that would cut $2 billion annually from food stamps and allow states to impose broad new work requirements on food stamps.
Supporters have been working this week to shore up support for the measure as members of both parties have signaled opposition to the food stamp cuts. An amendment adopted Thursday would also add the state option for work requirements.
Many Republicans say the cuts are not enough; the food stamp program has doubled in cost over the last five years to almost $80 billion a year and now helps to feed 1 in 7 Americans. Liberals oppose any reductions in food stamps, contending that the House plan could remove as many as 2 million needy recipients from the rolls.
The chamber rejected an attempt by Democrats Wednesday to eliminate the $2 billion in cuts and instead slash subsidy payments to farmers.
In amendment votes Thursday, the House voted down an overhaul of dairy policy that Republicans say would raise the price of a gallon of milk and voted to tighten caps on farm subsidies.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., sped the chamber through consideration of almost all of lawmakers' 103 amendments to the legislation Wednesday night. The House at one point adopted 38 amendments at once in a single vote.
The House bill, which would cut around $4 billion a year in overall spending on farm and nutrition programs, expands crop insurance programs and creates a new kind of crop insurance that kicks in before farmers' paid policies do.
Democrats say the bill should cut more from farm subsidies like crop insurance and less from food stamps.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he will vote for the bill but took the unusual step of openly lobbying colleagues to support the amendment overhauling dairy programs.
"After serving on the House Agriculture Committee for 16 years, and representing a number of farmers and ranchers in Ohio, I can tell you: our Soviet-style dairy programs are in dire need of reform," Boehner wrote in a letter sent Thursday morning to his colleagues.
Boehner has said he has concerns about the overall legislation but wants to get the farm bill to House and Senate negotiators for a potential deal. Aside from his concerns on the dairy program, he said the change in policy is better than doing nothing.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., says the bill is necessary to avoid farm crises and that it has some of the biggest reforms in decades. It would eliminate $5 billion a year in direct payments, subsidies that are paid to farmers whether they grow crops or not. The measure would also expand crop insurance and make it easier for rice and peanut farmers to collect subsidies.
Lucas and Republican leaders have worked behind the scenes to prevent most major challenges to the expanded subsidies on the House floor in an effort to smooth the bill's passage.
The Senate passed its version of the farm bill last week, with about $2.4 billion a year in overall cuts and a $400 million annual decrease in food stamps — one-fifth of the House bill's food stamp cuts.