TAXPAYERS CANNOT AFFORD A $1 TRILLION FARM BILL

September 11, 2013

Dear Representative:

Taxpayers for Common Sense urges you to oppose passage of a new trillion dollar farm bill and ensure any effort to address the expiring farm bill makes a significant down payment on our debt. While proponents of greater federal intervention in agriculture look to exploit every legislative vehicle to enact a new trillion dollar farm bill, taxpayers simply cannot afford more special interest handouts, new income entitlement programs, and increased federal spending on a sector experiencing record profits.

American producers do not need a new trillion dollar farm bill to have an adequate safety net:

• The primary federal support for agriculture – highly subsidized crop insurance – is a permanent program that never expires.
• Subsidized crop insurance cost taxpayers a record $14 billion in FY2012. H.R. 2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act, would increase taxpayer spending on this program that disproportionately shifts risks onto taxpayers’ backs.
• Farmers and ranchers undertook 2013 production decisions under a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill, which didn’t pass until 92 days after the bill expired, and are now projected to reap their most profitable year in history.

With the nation embroiled in sequestration and still facing a $753 billion deficit for FY2013, taxpayers cannot afford Washington business-as-usual. Instead of increasing spending today with promises to cut spending tomorrow, Congress must lead with common sense cuts. As a temporary fix to allow more time to reform complicated and duplicative agricultural subsidy programs, Congress should address any critical expiring conservation, nutrition, or other farm bill programs by passing a targeted, short-term farm bill extension and paying for it through common sense cuts already agreed to in the 2012 and 2013 farm bills. These cuts include eliminating direct payments, the failed Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program, Repowering Assistance Program, Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE), dairy export and production price programs, among others.

Taxpayers deserve a more cost-effective, accountable, transparent, and responsive farm safety net. Instead of spending a trillion dollars on outdated subsidies, we urge you to go back to the drawing board over the next year and devise a more fiscally responsible solution that saves at least $100 billion, eliminates outdated permanent farm bill law, and allows for a full, open, and separate debate on the nutrition and agriculture portions of the farm bill. Anything less will deprive taxpayers of much needed and long overdue savings on wasteful and unnecessary subsidies.

For more information, please contact me or Josh Sewell at 202-546-8500 or josh[at]taxpayer.net.

Sincerely,

Ryan Alexander
President