Georgia’s peanut farmers get a better deal this year under Congress’ proposed Farm Bill, but some Georgians could get tossed off food stamp rolls as lawmakers seek to remake the farm subsidy program and scale back nutrition programs.
The U.S. Senate could pass its bill this week, and the House will follow with its version soon, though passage there is far from certain. Farm and nutrition programs expired at the end of 2012 and are running on a temporary extension until a new five-year law is approved. The bill never made it to the floor of the House last year, stymied by election-year politics.
The Senate proposes light modifications to the food stamp program that would not hit Georgia’s 1.9 million recipients, but the House version would eliminate a practice that automatically gives food stamps to people who qualify for other forms of assistance.
Officials at Georgia’s Department of Human Services could not say for sure how many people would be affected, though spokeswoman Ravae Graham said it was “probably a small amount.” Nationwide, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 1.8 million people would lose benefits.
Congress’ companion bills trumpet their deficit impact as a selling point. This year both the House and Senate versions slash billions of dollars in spending.
The CBO said the Senate bill would save $17.8 billion over 10 years compared to current projections, while the House version would save $33.3 billion.
The extra savings in the House primarily come from additional cuts to the food stamp program, which has grown considerably in recent years during the economic downturn. Across the country there are now more than 47 million people receiving food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but the number is expected to decline as the economy improves.
Atlanta Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott said he is distressed that House Republicans want to “cut food stamps as much as possible because they’ve got a misconception of it … It’s not illegal immigrants getting food stamps. It’s not a guy with a do rag on his head trading food stamps for a lap dance or a bottle of liquor. It’s not that.” Scott said most food stamps go to women with children, and veterans are increasingly relying on them.
Many states, including Georgia, automatically enroll some residents for food stamps if they qualify for other assistance programs. In Georgia those include the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash welfare program and Supplemental Security Income for disabled people.
“All of this talk about duplicative processes in government, this is one of the places you can align your processes among these separate programs,” said Melissa Johnson, policy analyst for the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “So if you have a person, say, applying for TANF and going through a pretty rigorous application process with income verification, you don’t have to do that same process all over again for SNAP.”
Conservatives have long criticized the practice as a giant loophole. Heritage Foundation scholars Robert Rector and Katherine Bradley wrote in a 2012 paper that “Categorical eligibility is an imprudent policy that automatically adds persons to the food stamp rolls without determining whether they are economically needy.”
Both versions of this year’s bill seek to end direct cash payments to farmers, swapping in new crop insurance programs.
Last year new crop insurance proposals in the Senate pitted Southern rice and peanut farm interests against Midwestern ones. This year, the leadership balance shifted on the Agriculture Committee, with Mississippi’s Thad Cochran replacing Kansas’ Pat Roberts as the committee’s top Republican.
The result, said Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, is a bill that’s better for peanut and rice farmers because it allows them to select an insurance option that kicks in if prices dip too low. Peanuts are harder to insure under the standard program because they are not traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and thus more exposed to price swings.
Chambliss pointed out that the Senate bill’s target price is set below what peanuts have sold for the past few years.
“That is a safety net for farmers,” he said. “That’s the way it ought to be.”
Under the current system the government pays farmers a set price per acre. Tim Burch, a cotton and peanut farmer who farms 2,000 acres with his brother in Baker County, said he will miss the payments but he always knew their political future was grim.
“Direct payments are hard to defend,” he said.
Burch, who works with the Georgia Peanut Commission and has spoken to Washington lawmakers, added, “We really would rather not participate in government programs, but to have the stability and long-term viability of financing, we do need ‘em.”
Some conservative groups think the Farm Bills don’t cut enough spending. The Club for Growth and Heritage Action will line up against both versions, and they have the ability to move Republican votes – particularly in the House.
For generations the Farm Bill has relied on a bipartisan urban-rural coalition supporting farm subsidies and nutrition programs. But the rise of more conservative Republicans and a spending-cut-minded Congress threaten that alliance.
Rep. Austin Scott, a Tifton Republican who represents a largely rural south-central Georgia district, backed the House bill in committee, saying it strikes a good balance of cuts from nutrition and farm programs. He thinks the coalition will hold.
“Certainly, I expect the bill to pass,” he said.
