Is The GOP About To Go Down In Flames Over The Agriculture Policy Mess They Made For Themselves?

Earlier today I got into a bit of a revery about my days working at the Rainbow Cattle Company and the Cinch in San Francisco. What I didn't get into is that it was part-time work and the pay didn't even cover my meager pre-gentrified Mission District rent. Without food stamps… well, I don't know what I would have done. Certainly not start a record label that led to eventual payments of millions of dollars in taxes into the U.S. Treasury. There is no objective argument to be made that that wasn't one helluva great investment that taxpayers made! And perhaps it's that personal experience that compels me to write so frequently in support of the food stamp program.

I was aghast when I learned that conservative Democrats who have never experienced food stamps as recipients responded to the Republican demand to cut back the already beleaguered program by $40 billion by offering to cut it by $4 billion. WRONG RESPONSE! Progressives have a much better idea: the GOP wants to play hardball and jeopardize the health and the lives of working families; progressives can play hardball too-- by derailing the Farm Bill.

It's an idea rooted in the last food stamp fight: In June, the House failed to pass a farm bill that cut $20 billion from the food stamp program. The bill went down because 62 GOP conservatives thought the $20 billion in cuts weren't deep enough, while 172 Democrats thought they were too drastic. After the bill failed, House conservatives passed a much more draconian food stamps bill with $40 billion in cuts. But that bill was dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has vowed to pass a farm bill. To win agreement from the Senate and President Barack Obama, he's going to have to bring forward a bill with much shallower food stamp cuts. But introducing a farm bill with less than the full $40 billion in food stamp cuts will cost Boehner a lot of Republican votes-- especially because conservative groups, including Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and Americans for Prosperity, have been urging House Republicans to vote no.

That means Boehner is going to need some Democratic votes. His problem is the same as it was in June: math. He needs 216 votes to pass a bill. In June, 62 Republicans voted against a bill with $20 billion in cuts. If Boehner loses the same 62 Republicans this time around, he'll need at least 47 Democrats to vote yes. But just 24 Democrats voted for the June bill [primarily right-wing Big Business shills like Kyrsten Sinema, John Barrow, Patrick Murphy, Mike McIntyre, Cheri Bustos, etc]. So Boehner will likely have to introduce a bill with lower cuts--costing him more Republican votes. The more Republicans Boehner loses, the more Democrats he'll need.

And as Boehner saw in June, winning House Democrats' votes for a bill that slashes food stamps by billions of dollars is a heavy lift-- after all, if no farm bill passes, food stamps spending would remain at current levels. Why compromise when you can win by doing nothing at all? "It would make sense," emails a House Democratic aide, "for progressives to vote against [the farm bill].

Some House Democrats are already publicly skittish about voting for any level of food stamp cuts. "Many progressive members of Congress, especially those of us who represent areas with high levels of unemployment and food insecurity, may have a hard time voting for additional cuts to federal nutrition programs," Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the powerful judiciary committee, explained in an email. A staffer for Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who is part of the farm bill negotiating committee, says the congressman is "willing to compromise," but "will not vote for a bill that makes hunger worse in America." A staffer for Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) says that the lawmaker doesn't want to get into "hypotheticals," but that DeLauro does not support any further cuts to the food stamp program.

All this leaves Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic minority leader, in the driver's seat. If she wants to deliver 75 or 80 Democratic votes for a farm bill that cuts food stamps, she probably could. But so far, she hasn't committed to asking her caucus to vote for a farm bill-- even one with lower cuts. And she's already demonstrated that she can unify her caucus against a farm bill with cuts she thinks are too deep. Without Pelosi pushing for a yes vote, a compromise farm bill could go down again.

Now Boehner is scrambling to make a deal… a deal that pointedly ignores the Hastert Rules that he's using as an excuse to not allow votes on ENDA or on comprehensive immigration reform. One of Boehner's stooges, Iowa conservative Tom Latham is trying to make a deal that leaves the teabaggers out in the cold-- a compromise a lot closer to the Senate Democrats' $4 billion cut than to the $40 billion teabagger cut the House already passed. He's begging Senate Democrats to let Boehner save face by upping the cuts from $4 billion to $8 billion. And Senate Democrats-- feet held to the fire by progressives among them-- are holding firm and hanging tough, claiming they're willing to let the whole bill fall apart and blame Republicans their cruel, unreasonable and draconian demands. Farm groups that normally support mainstream Republican conservatives like Boehner and McConnell are furious that they can't control the crazies in their own caucuses. Extremist groups like Heritage, Club for Growth and other Koch-financed operations are demanding impossible cuts and threatening Republican congressmen willing to compromise. But take a look at what Big Agriculture has done for these 12 Republican agriculture policymakers in the last 2 dozen years:

• Jack Kingston (R-GA)- $255,299
• Frank Lucas (R-OK)- $204,250
• Jeff Denham (R-CA)- $195,613
• Farmer Fincher (R-TN)- $189,399
• John Boehner (R-OH)- $179,535
• Mike Conaway (R-TX)- $148,450
• David Valadao (R-CA)- $141,152
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $124,600
• Tom Latham (R-IA)- $117,250
• Rodney Davis (R-IL)- $108,089
• Eric Cantor (R-VA)- $105,500
• Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)- $103,670

Over that time period, AgriBuisness has lavished $284,103,399 on Republican congressional candidates (and another $150,235,316 on mostly conservative Democrats). The Tea Party is demanding congressmembers choose between them and their career-long donors. That should be interesting to watch.