Rep. DeSantis Statement on the Farm Bill

Statement

I voted against the so-called Farm bill yesterday. Most Republicans voted for it. Most Democrats voted against it.

According to fiscal soothsayers in Washington, the Farm bill, which authorizes $940 billion in spending over ten years, represents a $30 billion spending "cut." This is typical budget gimmickry which regards spending increases as "cuts" if the amount of spending is below a hypothetical and ever-increasing accounting baseline. The Farm bill increases spending in both real and nominal dollars and is, in fact, one of the largest spending bills Congress has considered in recent years.

There is also good reason to question whether the cost estimate is even close to accurate. For the 2002 and 2008 Farm bills, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) understated the 10 year cost of those bills by 30% and 52%, respectively. Therefore, if we take past performance as a guide, the true ten year cost of this bill will be between $1.2 and $1.4 trillion dollars. That is a huge amount of spending to authorize under any circumstances, much less under our current fiscal circumstances.

80% of the Farm bill is welfare, such as food stamps. Meant to serve as a temporary safety net for those in need, the food stamp program has nevertheless quadrupled over the last 11 years (going from $19 billion/yr to $39 billion/yr under the eight years of the Bush 43 administration and going from $39 billion/yr to $85 billion/yr under Obama). Note that food stamp use has increased in both economic recoveries as well as downturns. The bill voted down yesterday essentially locked in this trend going forward.

Virtually all Democrats who voted against the bill felt it spent too little. Perhaps they believe their leader, Nancy Pelosi, when she claims that food stamp spending is the best form of economic stimulus. In any event, most of the amendments offered by Democrats sought to expand the bill to include even more spending, and the supposed "deal breaker" was an amendment offered by Steve Southerland (R-FL) that would have merely given states the option of applying federal welfare work requirements to the food stamp program.

I didn't come to Washington to support big, bloated bills. Top-to-bottom reform of both the food stamp and agriculture programs is sorely needed. Otherwise, the loser will continue to be those men and women who consistently get forgotten in these debates: the American taxpayer.

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