Gop Mavericks Say Farm Bill Would Be Devastating Dissidents Back More Gradual Elimination Of Subsidies To Farmers

Republican Rep. Richard H. Baker of Louisiana says he had to buck his party leaders’ plan to overhaul farm programs because the proposal is biased against Southern farmers.

“The forces combine in a very economically devastating manner for my people,” said Baker. He was one of four Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee who defied their chairman, Rep. Pat Roberts of Kansas, and helped vote down his proposal to end traditional crop subsidies.

By opposing Roberts, the four have dimmed House leaders’ chances of coupling big savings with an end to cumbersome farm programs. The splits in the House and Senate Agriculture committees also mean the Budget committees will miss today’s deadline for coming up with budget-balancing proposals.

All the mavericks said they’re ready to cut $13.4 billion from farm programs, the goal set by budget writers. It’s just a matter of how.

Two of them, Reps. Larry Combest, R-Texas, and Bill Emerson, R-Mo., had proposed to save money by keeping traditional programs intact but giving growers payments on fewer acres.

“You have to define what is radical change,” said Combest. The spending cuts and increased planting flexibility in his proposal would further drive farmers to depend on markets rather than the government, he said. The transition began 10 years ago.

Besides, he added, there’s an election coming up. “It would certainly help if all the 70 Republicans from big farm districts came back next year,” he said.

Baker, too, insisted he’s not opposed to reform or cutting the budget.

“Underlying this is not an unwillingness to cut,” said Baker, who represents a district that produces cotton, soybeans and dairy products. He said he was willing to make changes, “but do it in a transitional manner rather than an overnight takeaway.”

All the dissenters come from areas that grow cotton or rice, two crops that depend heavily on a complicated system of government payments.

“The cotton program is a different type of program from the other commodity programs,” said Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss, whose home state of Georgia is the nation’s third-largest cotton producer. He also opposed Roberts’ proposal.

The Roberts proposal would cut the decades-old links between government payments, crop prices and crop production for corn, other feed grains, cotton, rice and wheat.

Farmers instead would get a fixed but declining payment based on their past five years’ payments, and would generally be free to plant what they choose. The government would stop forcing growers to idle acres in order to get payments.

The idea is to wean growers from a system that has worked its way into every facet of the farm economy.

But the proposal was born in the Plains at a time when wheat prices began to take off after years of low prices and high subsidies.

So, when the switch is made, wheat growers would be getting higher relative payments and high prices.

But it’s more complicated. When Southern farmers aren’t growing cotton, they generally plant soybeans, which have not been subject to direct subsidy payments. Cotton growers who switch to soybeans will get more money than people who have grown soybeans all along.

Baker said he could find cuts elsewhere, saving $7 billion by turning federal crop insurance entirely over to private industry.

To those who charge he is protecting old-time subsidies while Congress cuts welfare, he replies that the Roberts proposal does just that. “This program pays people a fee whether they’re planting or not,” he said.

Chambliss defended his decision, saying, “My team is my farmers and the good folks back home in central and south Georgia.”