Mistaken priorities

The House of Representatives finally fulfilled its mission of keeping subsidies for agriculture while cutting tens of billions of dollars of support for the unemployed.

For the past 40 years, the farm bill had been combining various subsidies for the farming sector with social programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), achieving a bipartisan balance.

This no longer exists, thanks to the House Republican leadership’s idea to split the bill into two parts. That way, they could be generous with the agriculture industry and at the same time take the opportunity to penalize the poorest with a punitive “public assistance reform.”

Therefore, on Thursday the lower chamber passed a bill that cuts almost $39 billion in 10 years, which will eliminate almost 4 million beneficiaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Ironically, they said their intention was to motivate beneficiaries to look for work, when in reality they cut tens of millions of dollars in incentives to the states to create job training programs.

The House’s other intention was to eliminate fraud and dependence on a federal program on the part of beneficiaries. However, none of these concerns came up for the agricultural portion of the bill, where there is also fraud and even more dependence.

An example is the program that pays farmers for not planting—where farmers are being paid to do nothing. These subsidies have included overpayments and irregularities, according to a report by the USDA’s inspector general. That does not happen with SNAP. And unlike with SNAP, these subsidies are not based on income; they are provided both to poor farmers and corporate giants.

It is outrageous that at a time when the economy still has not recovered its jobs, lawmakers want to punish those who cannot get work. They have taken flexibility away from the states, preventing them from deciding—as they do now—to extend federal benefits when there is a high unemployment rate.

In the limited ideological universe of the lower chamber, leaving millions of vulnerable people without benefits is a success. Likewise, lawmakers yesterday celebrated as a victory removing health care coverage and patient protections in wanting to repeal the health care reform. There is no doubt that their priorities are as clear as they are wrong for the good of the majority of Americans.