There won’t be a government shutdown when the new fiscal year starts next Tuesday. But the latest GOP stopgap funding proposal comes up short for farmers.
House Speaker Mike Johnsons put forth a three-month bare-bones stopgap continuing budget resolution, agreed to by Hill Democrats and President Biden after the defeat of an earlier controversial version. The new bill still extends WIC, ag credit insurance, rural housing, and livestock mandatory reporting, but again lacks a one-year farm bill extension and has no rumored temporary farm relief.
American Farm Bureau’s Emily Buckman says “There is no additional assistance in there, direct support for farmers and ranchers. You may have seen that last week AFBF and every state farm bureau joined together to sign and send a letter to Congress urging for an updated farm bill alongside economic disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers.”
Temporary farm aid amid falling prices was raised by Kansas Senator Jerry Moran recently and amplified by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) who said “I’m glad to hear Moran speaking up on this subject. You’ve heard me speak up on it. It’s to make sure the 2018 prices for PLC and ARC are updated.”
Grassley says Moran’s focus reflects six-year-old support levels that are still too low to trigger and don’t offset today’s much higher input costs. Another Kansan, Roger Marshall, complained in June that “What the Democrats have offered us does not take care of crop insurance. It doesn’t take care of reference prices. It has too many guardrails around the conservation programs.”
But the new CR, expected to pass swiftly this week, buys more time in a lame-duck session to try to settle farm bill differences and do full-year agency spending bills. Much will depend on the outcome of the November elections.
Story by Matt Kaye/Berns Bureau Washington; courtesy of NAFB News Service
