Farm bill expected to pass final vote in Senate Tuesday

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The farm bill is set to come to a final vote at some point Tuesday afternoon, and with strong bipartisan support, it is expected to pass.

As it stands, the bill calls for $956 billion in government spending over the next ten years, approximately 80 percent of that total going to nutritional programs like food stamps, the major assistance program for the nation's low-income families. The rest will fund subsidies and other support programs for America's farmers.

After the bill bounced around the House and Senate for the last three years, inspiring rancorous debate over the proper levels of spending, cuts, and reforms, it recently sailed through Congress -- buoyed by compromise. The bill passed the House 251-166 last week.

The legislation replaces billions of dollars in direct farm subsidy payments with a new crop insurance program. Additionally, stricter eligibility standards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is expected to shave roughly $8 billion off the government's food stamps bill.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates a combination of cuts included in the bill's provisions will save the government $16.6 billion over 10 years.

“We are the only part of the federal government to produce savings in our own areas of jurisdiction, and we eliminated about a hundred different programs or authorizations that . . . no longer made sense,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told C-SPAN in an interview Sunday.

But not everyone's proud of the bill's reductions. Environmental advocates and conservatives have both complained that the bill continues to funnel too much taxpayer money to America's largest farmers and agribusiness giants like Tyson's Food, Pilgrim's Pride, and Riceland Foods.

“Subsidizing large farmers to get larger in my view is just wrong,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told The Hill. “The American people should not be forced to subsidize the income of those farmers making upward of $1 million a year.”

Others say the bill doesn't do enough to curtail SNAP spending, while anti-hunger groups say even modest cuts will leave struggling families without the help they need to put food on the table.

The White House has already said that President Obama will sign the bill when it arrives on his desk.

[The Hill] [C-SPAN]