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Chambliss pushes Bush to accept farm bill
Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss met with President Bush in the Oval Office earlier this afternoon to stave off veto threats over the farm bill that surfaced earlier this week. Speaking to reporters afterward on Capitol Hill, Chambliss was neither upbeat nor pessimistic.
Chambliss said Thursday afternoon that Bush expressed “philosophical” objections to money and policy elements in the bill, but the president was not fully aware of all the steps that Congress was taking to trim subsidies.
Bush “never mentioned veto” during their talk, Chambliss added.
By the end of last week, the House and Senate finally closed in on a compromise after weeks of intense talks behind closed doors. But on Tuesday, criticism from the Bush administration calling the bill “bloated” threw Congress into disarray.
“America’s farm economy is thriving,” Bush said during a Rose Garden news conference. “The value of farmland is skyrocketing. And this is the right time to reform our nation’s farm policies by reducing unnecessary subsidies.”
The president, who has expressed regret that he did not make significant reforms to the 2002 farm bill, maintains that the current measure still contains subsidy levels that are too high. The White House initially proposed to limit subsidy recipients to farmers who earn under $200,000 a year, far short of the limit of $750,000 non-farm income in current versions winding through Congress.
Chambliss is the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee and the key Republican involved in farm bill talks. Agriculture is one of the few areas in congressional politics that consistently transcends partisan lines — Chambliss has championed southern farm interests for years alongside Democrats from midwestern states. He now walks a fine line as the Republican president and presumptive nominee John McCain both criticize the farm bill as too generous at a time of record food prices.
If the White House removes the veto pressure, House and Senate negotiators are expected to complete a bill fairly quickly and present a unified version to Bush early next week.
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