The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the official scorekeeper of legislative proposals and in release a farm bill baseline. The ongoing farm bill debate has a $1.51 trillion baseline over 10 years. While CBO on Tuesday updated its forecasts, the farm bill baseline remains the same because House Ag Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) got his proposal approved in his panel by the end of May.
CBO now says USDA’s use of its Section 5 authority under the CCC would total $12 billion from fiscal year (FY) 2025 through 2034. In February, USDA estimated that it would spend $15 billion over that period. But either tally is nowhere near the $50 billion or more the House Agriculture Committee needs to fund commodity program increases.
The new CBO projections “prove what we have been saying all along: the House Republican farm bill is unpaid-for, relying on magic math and wishful thinking,” Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said. “In exchange for blocking USDA’s ability to provide real time assistance to farmers through the CCC to address emerging challenges, House Republicans received only a small fraction of the $50 billion hole they need to fill to pay for their bill,” she said.
Stabenow said her Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act “is meaningful and responsible. And, importantly, it does not fracture the farm and food coalition that is the foundation of every successful farm bill. I did the hard work of securing new resources outside of the farm bill through $2.3 billion invested in trade promotion and food aid and a $5 billion commitment in bipartisan offsets from my Leadership. It’s time to get real and stop the posturing and the rhetoric. It’s time to negotiate in reality. My door is open.”
Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark,) ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, told us on AgriTalk he thinks the House needs to pass its farm bill to put pressure on Stabenow and Democrats.
Click here to view our special report on the CBO 10-year baseline projections.
