Until I started reading my RSS feeds tonight, it looked to me that the Food and Farm Bill was going to get through the House without much drama. There would be a few hours of passionate debate, some tame amendments (I read somewhere that Pelosi was going to severely limit the number of amendments to speed passage), and an anticlimactic bipartisan vote of approval. There was talk of a veto from the White House, which is probably just talk, certainly not enough of a threat to cause the Ag Committee to rewrite the bill.
But then I got to Mulch and the Center for Rural Affairs and found out that the glowing bipartisanship from last week has dramatically disappeared. The culprit: Democrats propose to help feed the hungry by cracking down on corporate tax evasion. Their plan is to rewrite part of the tax law so that American companies can’t shirk their responsibilities to the nation by setting up shell corporations in the Cayman Islands or other tax evasion nations. All tax increases are bad to the GOP these days (better to run up debt and let our grandchildren take care of it…), so the attacks on the Food and Farm Bill have begun.
Dan Morgan reports in the Washington Post:
Farm-state Republicans had been lining up with Democrats to defend the bipartisan bill but changed course when notified that a proposed increase in nutrition programs would be funded partly by tightening the rules on U.S.-based foreign companies that avoid U.S. taxes by using offshore havens.
Republicans quickly picked up on a White House statement branding the funding plan as an unacceptable tax increase. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (Va.), the ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said that all GOP lawmakers on the panel as well as GOP leaders would oppose the bill if the funding proposal stays in.
Democrats said the tax proposal would merely close a loophole that the Bush administration itself has decried in the past. "Who is surprised that the administration takes the side of CEOs who hold beachside board meetings at the expense of programs to feed the least fortunate here at home?" asked Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee.
This rapid change of heart from Rep. Goodlatte seems odd to me. Just a few days ago, he was one of the Ag Committee members who voted the bill out of committee, saying in an Alfa Farmers article
It is a tradition for this Committee to produce a bipartisan farm bill and I am pleased that today we upheld a tradition that enables us to truly serve the best interests of American agriculture and all who enjoy the benefits of a safe, reliable and affordable food and fiber supply. I look forward to continuing to work with the Chairman in a bipartisan fashion as we move ahead with this farm bill.
When Rep. Goodlatte cast his vote–and when he spoke those words–he knew that there was a $4 billion shortfall in nutrition programs. Wouldn’t have made more sense to wait for the details before casting an "aye" vote on the committee’s final version?
Or is something else going on in the House? Could this be a convenient excuse to scuttle the Food and Farm Bill, thus denying the Democrats of a legislative accomplishment? (the Senate GOP is doing quite a job on the delaying front, explained nicely by an article in McClatchey Newspapers).
More commentary on this startling turn of events from the Center for Rural Affairs and Mulch. And more reporting from CQ, The Hill, and the Associated Press.
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