Farm bill candor

Candor from Cabinet members of any administration cannot be assumed, so Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer’s recent comments on the farm bill were a welcome surprise.

He told reporters that Republican candidates in rural America could suffer if President Bush fulfilled his promise to veto the farm bill. The politically expedient move, Schafer said, would be to sign the farm bill, which appears to have bipartisan support in Congress. That is true. The bill is popular, so vetoing it will not help Republicans in rural districts.

While introducing some changes, the new bill largely hews to existing policy. This fact casts a revealing light on Schafer’s suggestion that he is proud of the president for sticking to his principles. Where were those principles in 2002, when Bush signed a more expensive farm bill into law, effectively laying out the framework for the bill he now opposes? A Republican House sent that farm bill to Bush, although the Senate had a Democratic majority.

The new farm bill does include some nods to reform, though critics say it falls far short of what is necessary.

For example, individual farmers will no longer be able to receive subsidies once their adjustable gross incomes exceed $750,000. That’s the first time there has ever been a limit on their payments.

The bill also includes a moderate reduction in some subsidies, reduces a tax credit for ethanol production from 51 cents per gallon to 45 and lowers the ceiling at which non-farmers get subsidy checks, from a $2.5 million ceiling to $750,000.

None of these changes, however, are likely to have a significant impact on agricultural prices.

Taxpayer groups, environmentalists and charitable organizations are among the groups that say the bill does far too little to reform outdated policies. Some note that couples can continue to receive government checks until their joint incomes top $1.5 million.

Did the president choose the politically expedient move in 2002? Probably. Bush had threatened to veto early versions of the 2002 bill, but backed down, apparently because of worries that a veto could hurt his party in that fall’s elections.

Many farm-state Republicans will probably abandon Bush to protect themselves this time around. But the veto also allows Democrats in states such as Kansas and North Dakota to tout their support for farms in the face of opposition from the president.

Republicans ended up having a good year in 2002, picking up six seats in the House and two in the Senate. Even without a farm bill veto, they seemed unlikely to do as well in 2008, but Schafer’s comments suggest the president’s stand could give the GOP another blow.