Remember the farm bill, that once-in-five-years legislation that sets the nation's agriculture and hunger policy? Due for reauthorization in 2012, it lurched through both the Senate and the House ag committee. But then it floundered on the floor of the House—whose GOP leadership refused to bring it to a vote, in an attempt to avoid conflict with tea party stalwarts seeking draconian cuts in anti-hunger programs.
But everything changed on New Year's Day, when the fiscal-cliff deal between Congress and the White House included a fast-and-dirty, stop-gap farm bill compromise that will be in place only until September—meaning that Congress will have to start from scratch on a new five-year bill this year.they are setting it up to have yet another opportunity to obstruct and keep the confrontation going
by now we have become acutely aware of right wing obstruction. they do a lot of political posturing selling wolf tickets they can't cash, only to scare us into a defensive mode against who they think we don't know, but they also thought Romney would win.
they are putting these road blocks in place just for opportunities for them to confront the Pres. and keep that confrontation going for 4 more years, all designed to extract something from "we the people in favor of their selfish money grubbing agenda. we have a hold card we just need to know when to hold them which is now until 2014, "we the people" now we can "take our government back".
Thus like the fiscal-cliff deal itself, the farm bill extension amounts to a feeble kick of the can down the road. And as you might expect from something hastily slapped together behind closed doors, it's a policy hodgepodge, and mostly a dismal one. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the main progressive ag lobbying group, minced no words in its assessment: "a disaster for farmers and the American people."
