During the two-year debate on the farm bill, Georgia farmers and families on food assistance stared down the prospect of deep spending cuts. But the bill that President Barack Obama signed into law Friday in Michigan does not cut food stamps at all for Georgians.
Its overhaul of farm-subsidy programs won praise from peanut and cotton farmers, and it lays the groundwork for possible new support for poultry farmers.
“Georgia would be a huge beneficiary of” a poultry program, said the state’s senior senator, Saxby Chambliss, who helped negotiate the final deal on a House-Senate conference committee and was a cheerleader for the bill.
The final result easily cleared both chambers, but the bill split the Georgia delegation. It earned fierce criticism from many conservatives for not cutting enough spending and from some liberals for its food stamp changes.
Obama said Friday as he signed it that the wide-ranging bill “multitasks” by helping boost jobs, innovation, research and conservation. “It’s like a Swiss Army knife,” he joked. Obama acknowledged its passage was “a very challenging piece of business.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would save $16 billion from future deficits, a small fraction of the nearly $1 trillion in authorized spending.
“The cuts are miniscule and of course the food stamp thing is just totally out of control,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Marietta Republican who is running for U.S. Senate and voted against the bill.
The food stamp program has grown to over $80 billion per year in the recession. The farm bill is projected to pare those costs by $8oo million per year by raising the amount of heating assistance people must receive to automatically qualify for food stamps. This is aimed at preventing states from giving token amounts of heating assistance to get more people on the food stamp rolls.
Basic eligibility for food stamps, which is based on income and assets, remains the same, and Georgia is not one of the 15 states with a “heat-and-eat” program, so it is unaffected by the change.
The cut is small compared to the $40 billion cut that House Republicans proposed, which would have included requiring able-bodied adults to find a job or be enrolled in job training to hold onto the benefits.
“Out of all the scenarios that we went through over the past year … this is probably one of the best scenarios, especially for Georgia,” said Melissa Johnson, of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
But some members of Congress drew a line against cutting anything from the safety-net program.
“I believe in my heart and soul that we cannot continue to reduce the deficit at the expense of those who are struggling from no fault of their own,” Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, said in a floor speech before voting against the bill.
The bill does kick in an extra $200 million for food banks, which have been under severe strain since the recession began.
Nutrition programs account for the bulk of the spending, but the farm bill also remakes farm subsidies. Farmers will no longer receive direct payments from the government based on their acres. Instead, most will have the chance to enroll in new crop-insurance programs.
South Georgia mainstays peanuts and cotton each presented special cases.
Peanut farmers now will have the option to buy crop insurance or participate in the program where the government floats them a loan if prices drop too low.
In part because of a trade dispute with Brazil, the cotton-subsidy program was rewritten as well. Instead of getting a guaranteed target price, cotton farmers can enroll in what Chambliss referred to as “crop insurance on steroids.” Congress and the cotton lobby believe it will make the crops compliant with international trade agreements.
Chambliss was sensitive to criticism that calls the subsidies a giveaway for rich landowners, pointing out there is a $125,000 limit on payouts to any one farmer and no farmer with an income above $900,000 is eligible for subsidies.
“All of that is designed to make sure what money we do spend goes to farmers, goes to guys who get their hands dirty,” Chambliss said.
Future farm bills could include support for North Georgia in the form of new federal insurance for poultry farmers. The bill, in language pushed by Chambliss and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., commissions studies on an insurance program for poultry growers whose animals are wiped out by disease or are shut out when their processor goes bankrupt.
“The success of a program like this would depend on the coverage offered and the potential benefits to the grower compared to the premium cost,” Mike Giles, president of the Georgia Poultry Federation, wrote in an email. “We are hopeful that the agency’s work will answer these questions.”
The nearly 1,000-page bill also lays out policy for research and conservation programs across the country. Georgia universities will seek a chunk of an authorized $800 million in agricultural research money over the next five years.
“That money filters down to place like Griffin and Tifton,” said Chambliss, referring to University of Georgia research facilities. “It doesn’t benefit farmers this year, but 20 years from now it really pays dividends.”
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