FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 21, 2012

CONTACT:
Joshua Sewell
202-546-8500

Statement of Ms. Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense on Senate passage of S. 3240, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012

Washington, DC – The Senate squandered an opportunity to demonstrate to taxpayers that Washington is finally ready to confront our nation’s pending fiscal cliff by passing the nearly trillion dollar Farm Bill today.

While the rest of the country slowly recovers from the recession, agricultural businesses have experienced some of the most profitable years in a generation. Yet instead of taking this opportunity to eliminate outdated and obviously unnecessary agricultural subsidies, the United States Senate has chosen to increase Washington’s outsized role in agriculture through expanding taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance and creating new entitlement programs that put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for certain agricultural businesses.

This Farm Bill is an example of Washington business as usual. Senate leadership touts this bill as a bipartisanship effort toward deficit reduction. But the $23 billion in expected savings represents a mere 2.3% haircut from the Congressional Budget Office baseline. And the $969 billion Farm Bill is 60% larger than the last Farm Bill passed a mere four years ago.

The Senate Farm Bill is not a paragon of bipartisan deficit reduction. It is a prime example of parochial pandering.

Facing a $1.3 trillion deficit soon to be piled on top of a $15 trillion debt, taxpayers cannot afford this bill. The House of Representatives must do better.