Editorial
The failure of the deficit super committee to meet its Thanksgiving deadline means a hastily written farm bill proposal crafted behind closed doors won't be passed this year.
We had hoped the committee would find real deficit reductions, but we are willing to take the secret farm bill's demise as a welcome product of the committee's failure.
The leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees had offered up $23 billion in savings over 10 years in exchange for the opportunity to write a five-year farm bill that would have been included in the super committee's final legislative proposal. That proposal would not have been subject to amendment or filibuster. The super committee's deadline meant that the farm bill had to be written on an expedited schedule without the normal public hearings and markup sessions.
As we said in October, we're not fans of the take-it-or-leave-it style of lawmaking, particularly when it's devised behind closed doors. Good laws come from a deliberate, open process.
Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., is a member of the House Agriculture Committee. He said the ag committees will likely use the proposal as a template when they begin work on the legislation that will replace the current farm bill that expires next September. That makes sense.
Committee leaders haven't released specifics, but according to an outline provided by Schrader, the proposal:
* Eliminates direct payments to corn, soybean, wheat, rice and cotton growers as part of $13 billion in cuts to commodity programs, replacing those subsidies with risk management programs.
* Ends farm payments to any person or entity with an adjusted gross income of more than $950,000, and maintains the existing cap on agricultural risk coverage programs at $105,000.
* Keeps in place $200 million in annual funding for the USDA's market access program.
* Consolidates 10 conservation programs into five, and phases out the conservation reserve program as those contracts expire.
* Strengthens crop insurance coverage for "underserved crops," including fruits and vegetables, creates a revenue protection program for cotton growers and expands crop insurance coverage for other producers.
* Adopts dairy program reforms, replacing the Milk Income Loss Contract Program and the Dairy Product Price Support Program with a voluntary, margin-based assistance program backed by the National Milk Producers Federation.
It seems like as good a place to start as any.
Congressional ag leaders now will have the opportunity to see if the work they and their staffs did in secret can stand up to public scrutiny. And under the regular rules, the final legislative proposals hammered out by the ag committees will be subject to amendment by the full House and Senate.
That's how the founders envisioned it, and that's how these things should be handled.
