This bill (H.R. 2) would reauthorize and extend federal farm and nutrition programs through fiscal 2023, including crop subsidies, conservation, rural development and agricultural trade programs, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (aka food stamps). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that direct spending on agricultural and nutrition programs under this bill would total $867 billion over 10 years. And according to an article in The Hill entitled “Once again, the farm bill is stuffed with food stamps” (May 14, 2018), “roughly 80 percent of the [Farm] bill’s annual budget is earmarked for food stamps.” This bill would also reauthorize a whole variety of other agricultural and nutritional programs, as well as allow industrial hemp to be grown in the United States, subject to strict state regulation.
The Senate passed H.R. 2 on June 28, 2018 by a vote of 86 to 11 (Roll Call 143). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to subsidize food or agriculture. Moreover, food subsidies have done little to lift people out of poverty, and farm subsidies have caused market distortions as the government essentially picks winners and losers in the food production industry.
