Ag Policy Blog

Correcting the Record

I need to start off with a correction from an article earlier this week on the White House budget proposal.

I had a line in the article, "The crop-insurance cut is smaller than in earlier budget proposals, but it would take an average of $1.6 billion a year out of crop insurance, or $16 billion over the next decade."

That statement suggesting the proposed cut "is smaller than in earlier budget proposals" is incorrect. In making a comparison with earlier Obama administration budget proposals, I was considering the entirety of the president's proposed budget cuts for agriculture, not just the crop insurance share of the proposal.

Taxpayers for Common Sense pointed out the error to me. The group's analysis shows that the president proposed $16 billion in crop insurance cuts offered this year compares with $14 billion in FY15 and $12 billion in FY14.

Here is a breakdown in the White House budget proposal from Taxpayers for Common Sense, which supports cutting those programs. http://www.taxpayer.net/…

I regret the mistake.

Oh No They Didn't

A day after the chairmen of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees scoffed at President Barack Obama's proposal to cut crop insurance, a pair of senators -- one from each party no less -- introduced a bill that would translate into significant cuts to crop insurance for the nation's largest farmers.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., introduced a bill to put a $50,000 cap on the annual crop-insurance premium subsidies, which they described as "wasteful." The senators said their bill would save taxpayers $2.2 billion over 10 years.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for a crop insurance program that benefits large companies that don’t need it,” Shaheen said in a news release. “Crop insurance subsidies for big businesses are an example of egregious government spending that we can do without. We are proposing a common-sense reform that will save taxpayers billions of dollars, and we ought to act on this bipartisan proposal immediately.”

Toomey added, "There's no reason why the federal government should be spending more than $1 million, in some cases, to subsidize insurance policies for large Agri-businesses. Since 2000, total federal spending has more than doubled, this open-ended entitlement needs to be reined in. Washington needs to work to bring our deficit under control, and this legislation offers us the opportunity to save about $2.2 billion and make common-sense reforms to a bloated crony-capitalist program."

The senators cited a Government Accountability Study showing 26 farms received more than $1 million each in taxpayer dollars in 2011. According to the GAO, 2.5% of farmers would have been affected by a $50,000 premium cap in 2011.

Toomey and Shaheen aren't the first senators to push a cap on crop-insurance premium subsidies. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who opted not to run for re-election, pushed a similar cap that was part of the Senate's version of the farm bill in 2013 before the provision was taken out by conference negotiators.

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