The Dog Ate the Farm Bill. Again.
Iowa's congressional delegation is hitting the campaign trail bragging about how much they've gotten done for Iowa. Ask them why we still don't have a Farm Bill.
On Monday October 7, 2024, exactly 373 days will have passed since the five year Farm Bill, last updated in 2018, expired on September 30, 2023.
It has still not been updated, modernized or renewed.
Now is a good time for Iowans to ask members of Iowa’s congressional delegation as they campaign full time across the state, bragging about all they have done for Iowa, why this vital work - legislation central to the state’s economy - still remains neglected and unfinished.
372 days is a long time to languish, waiting for something to happen.
This is not inconsequential legislation for Iowans. And Iowa is not a state which lacks members of the House or Senate positioned to help get this job done. So why haven’t they? You’ll have to ask them. Which is actually a pretty good idea. It’s time they started feeling some heat over this failure, anyway.
There are four Iowans - two on the House Agriculture Committee and two on the Senate Agriculture Committee. They had and have a special obligation to see that the Farm Bill moved through Congress expeditiously and on time.
That is their job. They failed miserably at it.
In the US House, Rep. Zack Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) serve on the House Agriculture Committee.
To read Zach Nunn’s press releases, in which he often absurdly portrays himself as stomping around the halls of Congress “demanding” this and “blasting” that you’d think he’d have ruined his vocal cords by now. He has astonishingly little to show for all that stomping, demanding and blasting, though. There is certainly not a lot evidence that he has done much to push this long over due Farm Bill across the finish line.
Rep. Randy Feenstra currently advertises himself in his re-election campaign with ads and signs which proclaim “Feenstra Delivers!”
Iowa farmers, now in their second year of waiting for Congress to finish its long lost Farm Bill, would be right to ask:
“Delivers what? Certainly not the Farm Bill.”
Both of Iowa’s US Senators, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee. There is scant evidence they’ve been doing much to so much as nudge the Farm Bill to completion either. Last May, Grassley even essentially told Iowans to forget about it, predicting Congress would not complete the Farm Bill this year.
He didn’t seem too bothered by that.
He merely explained that Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on what its provisions should be.
I guess his message for farmers is to just get over it and wait some more. Congress will get to it when they get to it. He certainly wasn’t offering any solutions to the deadlock.
Chuck Grassley is a US Senator, a member of the Senate Agriculture, and the longest serving member of the United States Senate. Every time he seeks re-election, he tells Iowans about how much “clout” he has in Washington.
Not on the Farm Bill, apparently, despite its importance to his home state.
Grassley’s job is not to be a play-by-play announcer, standing on the sidelines describing what is not happening.
His job is to roll up his sleeves, dive in and help get the bill unstuck - and the job done - for his constituents. He hasn’t.
Ernst has been pretty much invisible on getting a new Farm Bill across the finish line, too. Certainly when it comes to throwing any elbows to get the long over due bill finished. She’s running for a Republican leadership position in the Senate, so - sorry Iowans, your needs now take a back seat to her need to win votes from fellow Republicans in the Senate for her leadership race.
It is apparently no time for her to be ruffling Republican feathers in the Senate, no matter how much trouble that might cause for Iowa farmers.
Meanwhile, Iowa farmers are trying to plan for yet another crop year without the benefit of knowing what the federal farm program will be in the coming year, or next five years, for that matter. That is not an inconsequential detail for farmers. It is vital information they need.
Congress kicked the can down the road in 2023, and simply extended the Farm Bill in its current form, and promised to finish work on it promptly during the coming year, 2024 - which at this point, has become this past year.
Congress enacted nothing.
The motive for kicking the can down the road for completing the Farm Bill until the end of this year - well after the election - is clear:
(a) to avoid public recognition of the fact that these folks just aren’t very good at their jobs, which is to work out disagreements, reach solutions, and pass legislation on time even when doing so is difficult; and
(b) to avoid accountability by waiting until after the election to pass whatever they eventually wind up passing, assuming they eventually pass something.
Whatever the reasons, despite all the posturing press releases, and promises, the bottom line remains that Congress — especially Iowa’s two senators and two representatives who serve on the Agriculture Committees - produced a big fat nothing burger on the Farm Bill. Just like the year before.
They ought to be taking some heat from voters about that.
As the second September 30 rolled around with nothing accomplished, Congress simply promised that they’ll get a new Farm Bill done by the end of this year - December 31, 2024.
In other words, the dog ate their homework. Again. Two years in a row now - in 2023 and again in 2024.
They’d like us to believe that their Farm Bill homework is late through no fault of their own. If we just give them an extension, they’ll eventually be able to hand it in.
The odds of that actually happening by December 31, in my view, are very slim.
If this stretches through the rest of this year - to December 31 - that brings the total count of days that have elapsed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired to 458 by December 31, 2024.
It’s also a safe bet that Congress won’t be enacting a new Farm Bill on January 1, or even in January or February. It took House Republicans nearly a solid month of bickering and infighting among themselves to elect a House Speaker at the beginning of this Congress, so — even at best, I think we we’re looking at March 1, 2025, as a realistic earliest date for a new Farm Bill to be enacted, no matter what they are saying in Congress.
That brings the elapsed time to 517 days since the 2018 Farm Bill expired.
You’ll hear plenty in the next 30 days how Iowa’s all Republican congressional delegation “delivers” for Iowa.
Sure they do. Sure they do.
Just not for Iowans who farm; or who need to be able to plan their upcoming farming operations; or for Iowans who care about the farm economy; or for Iowans who recognize the critical importance of the Farm Bill being delivered on time.
SWAQ: A NEW FEATURE AT THE END OF EACH OF MY WEEKLY COLUMNS BEGINS THIS WEEK - “SEALED WITH A QUIP.” I’m doing something new, starting this week: a final brief quip or pithy observation at the end of each column. The aim is to provide a snappy or witty observation on a current political matter that provides a light comment on an additional topic. Hopefully, it might even make you smile.
Let’s see how this goes, I’ll appreciate your feedback:
SWAQ: SEALED WITH A QUIP - 10/06/2024
Try this at your next job interview: “I was told there would be no resume checking. You were not supposed to check my resume.”
Just a couple days ago, Feenstra’s social media post lamented how the Republican house ag committee leaders had “approved” a farm bill, but the problem, predictably, is the Democrats. People like me out in the hinterlands think, gee, he must be doing his job. He does not explain the disagreements about shifting limited farm bill funds away from food protection or conservation supporting programs.
Thank you, Barry, for this update.
Your quip is perfect.
And so are your comments about Iowa’s senators and representatives. This has been a do-nothing Congress