Did Your Rep Vote Right On The Farm Bill?

Chris Chocola, President, Club for Growth: Yesterday, the Farm Bill FAILED in the House by a decisive 195-234 margin.

We will keep you appraised of the Republican leadership’s efforts to try and pass this trillion dollar monstrosity again, but in the meantime, there are other votes that took place during the debate that we thought you would be interested in.

• Rep. Chabot (R-OH) offered an amendment to repeal the Market Access Program, a corporate-welfare subsidy for agri-businesses. It failed, 98-322.
• Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) offered an amendment to allow food stamp recipients to use food stamps to buy “personal hygiene” products. It failed, 123-297.
• Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) offered an amendment that would eliminate a wasteful “healthy food financing initiative.” It failed, 194-232.
• Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) offered an amendment that would eliminate a federal government handout to local farmers’ markets. It failed, 156-269.
• Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) offered an amendment that would strike a protectionist clause from the bill that would have blocked olive oil imports. It passed 343-81.
• Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) offered an amendment that would block the imposition of a tax on Christmas trees (Seriously). It failed, 197-227.
• Rep. Trey Radel (R-FL) offered an amendment to repeal the so-called National Sheep Industry Improvement Center. It passed, 235-192.
• Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) offered an amendment to make modest reforms to the sugar subsidy program. It failed, 206-221.
• Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) offered an amendment that would cut an additional $11 billion in the food stamp program by imposing additional work requirements. It failed, 175-250.
• Final passage of the trillion dollar Farm and Food Stamp bill failed, as we said, 195-234.

Remarkably, there were 35 congressmen (all Republicans) who took the pro-growth position on all of these votes. They included people elected with Club member support, like Reps. Justin Amash (MI), Paul Broun (GA), Tom Cotton (AR), Ron DeSantis (FL), Jeff Duncan (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Tom Graves (GA), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Jim Jordan (OH), Thomas Massie (KY), Tom McClintock (CA), Mick Mulvaney (SC), Mike Pompeo (KS), Keith Rothfus (PA), Matt Salmon (AZ), and David Schweikert (AZ).

One more congressman deserves extra attention for his pro-growth support on all of these votes – Rep. Tim Huelskamp. His leadership was a true “profile in courage” because he comes from the “Big 1st” district in Kansas, one of the largest recipients of farm subsidies. Huelskamp recently said, “People in Kansas get it -- just because it’s the farm bill doesn’t mean you have to vote for it. It’s not just the farm bill, it’s also the food stamp bill.”

Well said, Congressman!

Now, looking ahead, House leadership will try to bring up the Farm Bill again after they attempt to buy some votes. You can help the Club for Growth stop the awful Farm Bill once and for all – please call the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell your congressman not to support the bill unless it is broken up into two stand-alone measures that focus on farm subsidies and food stamps separately. Once that happens, we need to put farm subsidies on a path to elimination and we need to devolve the food stamp program to the state level where they belong. We’ll continue to keep you updated on our progress.

Overall this week has been a good one for fiscal conservatives!

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