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Nearly a year ago, U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham argued in the Wall Street Journal that the unholy alliance between food stamps and agriculture policy [2] — known in Washington as the farm bill — must come to an end.
Congress failed to take that advice last month, preferring to stick with the status quo. The result: 62 Republicans bucked their own party to defeat the nearly trillion-dollar bill [3]. Among those 62 were four Republicans from Virginia: Reps. Robert Goodlatte (VA-6), Scott Rigell (VA-2), Robert Hurt (VA-5) and Frank Wolf (VA-10).
Now lobbyists and special-interest groups are fighting back, pressuring GOP leaders to keep the “farm” bill intact [4]. Remember, the farm bill was not only loaded with expensive programs and subsidies, but it would have also locked in President Obama’s expansion of food stamp spending.
Stutzman, a fourth-generation farmer from Indiana, will visit The Heritage Foundation’s Bloggers Briefing on Tuesday morning to discuss his #SplitTheBill [5] campaign. The Bloggers Briefing begins at 11:30 a.m. ET and will be broadcast on Livestream [6] (and on the player below).
My colleague Daren Bakst, an agriculture policy expert at Heritage, notes that simply splitting the bill won’t solve the problem. That’s just the first step to reforming a flawed approach [1] to farm programs and food stamps.