Updated 10:19 a.m. | House GOP leadership is gambling that it can line up 218 Republican votes to pass a farm bill later today shorn of food stamps without the support of conservative groups who helped kill the bill the last time around. Late Wednesday, the House Rules Committee refused to make any amendments in order to the new, 608-page farm bill, spurning conservative groups' demand for an open amendment process. Leaders added a repeal of the 1949 law that requires the passage or extension of a farm bill as a carrot to conservatives, but groups like the Club for Growth demanded far more and announced they will key vote against the bill. And, of course, the measure dropped food stamps in another bid to shore up GOP support. According to Agriculture Chairman Frank D. Lucas, R-Okla., the likely result will be that dropping food stamps from the bill now will mean the Senate's far slimmer cuts to the program will be adopted in the end. He appealed to Democrats on the Rules Committee by suggesting that in conference with the Senate, the House would likely either accept the Senate's $4 billion cut from current spending to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — compared with the House bill, which advocated for roughly $20 billion in cuts — or the Senate would not advance its nutrition title, effectively continuing current spending. (more…)
