House OK’S scaled-down farm bill, puts off food stamps
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The House passed a scaled-down version of a massive farm bill on Thursday, putting off a fight over food stamp spending and giving Republican leaders a victory after a decisive defeat on the larger bill last month.
The food stamp program doesn’t need legislation to continue, but Congress would have to pass a bill to enact cuts demanded by conservative lawmakers.
GOP leaders scrambled to get the bill to the floor and gather enough votes after deciding to drop a politically sensitive food stamp section of the bill and pass legislation that contained only farm programs.
They faced significant opposition to the plan from Democrats, farm groups and conservative groups that threatened to use the vote against GOP members in future campaigns. But Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., navigated his colleagues to a narrow 216-208 vote by convincing Republican members that this was the best chance to get the bill passed and erase the embarrassment of the June defeat.
Any other path to passage would have most likely included concessions to Democrats who opposed the original bill.
Last month, 62 Republicans voted against the original $100 billion-a-year bill after Boehner and Cantor supported it. Only 12 Republicans voted against the new measure, and no Democrats voted for it.
Republicans said the food stamp part of the legislation would be dealt with separately at a later date, and Cantor said after the vote that Republicans would “act with dispatch” to get that legislation to the floor.
Just hours before Thursday’s expected floor vote, it was still unclear whether GOP leaders had the votes needed to pass the new measure containing only farm programs. The legislation faced a veto threat from the White House, and House Democrats reacted angrily to the last-minute move by the GOP.
Splitting the popular farm bill from the controversial food stamp cuts, and releasing the bill’s text on the eve of the scheduled vote Thursday, denied conservatives the time to rally opposition to it. But the bill’s prospects remained a tense question through the day.
Before the vote, Boehner acknowledged that the process was unusual but said, “My goal right now is to get a farm bill passed.”
The dropped food stamp section would have made a 3 percent cut to the $80 billion-a-year feeding program. Many Republicans say that isn’t enough since the program’s cost has doubled in the past five years. Democrats have opposed any cuts.
In voting for the bill, conservative lawmakers made the unusual move of bucking the conservative groups Club for Growth and Heritage Action, both of which said they would use a “yes” vote against Republicans in future campaigns.