In an op-ed for the National Review, Congressman Warren Davidson writes that the farm bill Congress passed yesterday should have included more reforms to benefit farmers and welfare recipients. He explains that approximately 80 percent of the farm bill will be spent on food stamps, with only 20 percent directed to the farm economy.
Congressman Davidson introduced a bill last year to consolidate more than 90 welfare programs which cost taxpayers almost $1 trillion a year.
Every year Congressman Davidson hosts Farm Forum in Piqua, Ohio. The event, which was started by former Congressman John Boehner, gives those involved in farming the opportunity to hear industry experts share updates in agriculture from across the state as well as nationally.
Click here to read Congressman Davidson’s op-ed.
It’s Time to Reform Food-Stamp Policy
With no work requirements, the farm bill offers more of the same
A strong farming industry is vital to America’s economy and national security. With the ongoing tariff battle, there is no question that some federal assistance can help protect America’s farm economy. However, the farm bill passed yesterday by Congress undermines the interests of America’s taxpayers.
During the Great Depression, farm subsidies were created to keep family farms afloat and ensure a stable national food supply. Today, the farm bill has less to do with helping family farms than with maintaining the status quo and administering a plethora of food-assistance poverty programs as if the economy were still in crisis.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, total farm-bill spending from 2018 to 2028 is estimated to be $867 billion. Approximately 80 percent of that will be spent on food stamps, with only 20 percent directed to the farm economy. The farm bill should really be renamed the food-stamp bill. According to data from the Department of Agriculture, at a time when the economy is thriving and unemployment is at its lowest level in decades, more than 40 million people in the U.S. are using food stamps — more than the entire population of Canada.
America is a generous country. Americans want to help their neighbors in need. But welfare is a two-way street. Healthy adults without children at home should have to work to receive welfare benefits. The reason is simple: Work requirements work. Individuals who hold full-time employment are ten times less likely to be poor than people who are out of work during at least part of the year.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton implemented welfare reforms that were bipartisan. The success of these reforms has since been repeated in Maine, Kansas, Alabama, and Indiana, where the total number of able-bodied adults on welfare rolls decreased by as much as 60 to 80 percent. What’s more, those who left welfare have seen major increases in their income. In Maine, for example, those who left welfare for the workforce more than doubled their family income.
Despite evidence in support of welfare reform, work requirements that the House passed in June were eventually killed in conference committee with the Senate’s version of the farm bill. But consider this: Welfare reform is a winning issue across the country. According to a poll taken in April 2018 by the Foundation for Government Accountability, over 80 percent of Americans support work requirements for welfare recipients. Instead of lifting individuals out of poverty, Congress is maintaining the status quo and leaving millions of able-bodied adults on the sidelines of our strong economy.
Meanwhile, the farm portion of the farm bill expands subsidies to corporations and “off-site” farmers. The conferenced farm bill contains language that will significantly increase access to farm subsidies, allowing extended-family members of farmers who are “actively engaged” in farming operations to qualify to collect farm subsidies.
Language in the farm bill will also expand an existing loophole that, according to the Government Accountability Office, would allow 10 percent of farmers, corporations, and agribusinesses to receive 70 percent of federal subsidy payments. Many of these recipients are millionaires living in places such as New York City. This is fiscally irresponsible and callously unfair to the small family farmers the subsidies were meant for.
Our nation is more than $21 trillion in debt. Failure to hold recipients of taxpayer dollars accountable only exacerbates America’s spending crisis.
Finally, the House-passed language helped Ohio farmers by providing a clear legal definition of the term “waters of the United States” (a.k.a. “WOTUS”), over which the EPA has jurisdiction. The Obama administration used rule-making based on this phrase to massively expand federal jurisdiction over all the nation’s waterways. This action was so expansive that it was blocked by the federal courts as unconstitutional. Unfortunately, this leaves the Trump administration to make a new rule. While the new rule accomplishes similar results as the House-passed language, it will prove temporary and be subject to future executive redefinition. Congress should have provided legislative clarity by passing the House’s binding legal definition of WOTUS. Instead, Senate Republicans surrendered to Democrats.
As representatives of the American people, we have a responsibility to enact policies that will help and benefit everyone, not just a select few. Elected officials must steward taxpayer dollars responsibly. As leaders, we must help those in need to rise out of difficult circumstances. At every level, this bill undermines the ideals of the American people who sent us here in the first place, and we have done them a disservice by passing it in its current, weakened form.
Congressman Warren Davidson represents Ohio’s eighth district in the House of Representatives and serves on the House Financial Services Committee. He is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
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By Warren Davidson
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Prior to becoming a congressman in a special election two years ago, I spent 15 years starting, acquiring and growing manufacturing companies. I have experienced bad trade policy firsthand. Consequently, when Donald Trump campaigned on promises to fix our broken trade deals, like most of my colleagues in manufacturing, I was energized.
Of course, trade affects far more than manufacturing. Ohio’s 8th Congressional District is also one of the top agriculture districts in America. Though smaller and less well known, the region is an innovation hub going back further than the Wright brothers. We know how vital trade is to America’s economic power, and how critical economic strength is to military power. Indeed, before America was powerful militarily, America was powerful economically.
Many of the principles of war apply to trade. Perhaps the most basic is that, from Sun Tzu through WWII and more modern wars, multiplying your enemies never results in victory. Instead, effective strategy should multiply allies. Peter Navarro, and perhaps others, have poorly served our president and America’s national interest by employing poorly conceived means that have alienated our allies, multiplied and united our adversaries, and made victory less certain in this noble mission. Fortunately, there is a better way on trade.
First, Congress must restore its integral, constitutional role on trade. Earlier this year, I sponsored the Global Trade Accountability Act in the House. This bill keeps the president’s essential role in negotiating trade; however, it requires congressional approval within 90 days of implementation for changes to tariffs to become effective.
Were this bill already law, the administration would likely collaborate closely with Congress to make law more enduring and effective than an executive action. Collaboration would lead to better execution and better outcomes. For example, if Congress did support uniform tariffs, there would certainly be a better framework in place to approve exemptions. Presently, there are more than 20,000 companies in the queue and only six employees reviewing requests — one company at a time.
Second, like warfare, we should seek to minimize collateral damage and prevent harm to the innocent. Mr. Navarro’s flawed approach treats every country as an enemy, maximizes collateral damage and provokes harmful retaliatory strikes on otherwise well-functioning sectors (the innocent). His method is akin to fire-bombing major population centers to target a few enemy combatants.
Tariff wars not only harm our adversaries, they harm our closest allies, and they harm America’s economy (American companies and America’s consumers). Consumers are already paying higher prices, and companies that have been driving the strong growth rate are changing their plans and cancelling capital investments. Without a change of course, Mr. Navarro’s flawed approach will create a recession. Maybe that fear can work to force negotiations, but at what cost? Thankfully, there is a better way on trade.
A better way on trade would minimize the use of tariffs and unite our allies to implement targeted sanctions against bad actors. We already use this framework to target our adversaries, and it works. Using a more targeted sanctions regime instead of uniform tariffs, we could be precise enough to target companies — perhaps Chinese state-owned steel makers — and key executives.
These actions have downstream effects, but only for those directly aiding and abetting bad actors. For example, shipping companies refuse to transport the products of bad actors and banks refuse to hold and transfer their assets. Sanctions have a withering effect on targets. They are also much easier to escalate and deescalate as fast-moving negotiations warrant.
Just like modern warfare, a better way on trade is not only more just, it is also more effective. It creates allies, minimizes enemies, makes use of proven tools, and conserves resources. Applying effective strategy is how we accomplish missions. The mission of improving America’s broken trade deals should begin by uniting our allies against bad practices and against those who carry them out.
President Trump should change course now. Mr. President please part ways with Mr. Navarro, reject his flawed approach, engage with Congress and win this just cause with just and effective means — a better way on trade.
• Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a Republican, is a former Army Ranger.
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