House Vs Senate Farm Bill
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Prospects for the farm bill are not looking good in the Senate according to one longtime senator.
Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley says his recent conversations with Senate Ag Chair John Boozman don’t bode well for a Senate farm bill …
GRASSLEY … “I don’t think that Boozman feels he’s got much chance of getting a bipartisan bill out of the Senate Ag Committee.”
That led Grassley to again conclude …
GRASSLEY … “I haven’t changed my view that we’re probably going to have to work off of the House bill, because of the inability of getting Democrat support to get the Ag bill out of the Senate Ag Committee.”
But the House-passed farm bill would continue SNAP anti-fraud reforms Democrats opposed in the president’s tax bill last summer, forcing high-error rate states to pick up more SNAP costs …
GRASSLEY … “We can’t allow states that have 20-percent fraud, continue to waste the taxpayers’ money that way.”
Grassley suggests the SNAP fight could prove fatal to the House farm bill …
GRASSLEY … “It’s not going to make it any easier to get the House bill up in the Senate.”
Grassley’s insight suggests the three-year struggle to pass a farm bill over Democrats’ objections to SNAP reforms isn’t over.
