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Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act

Floor Speech

Date: June 20, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Entitlements and the Safety Net Agriculture and Food

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. This is a pretty straightforward motion. It recommits the bill in the Senate back to the committee to have that committee report back to the full Senate two separate bills. It recognizes the reality that what we have in front of us is not really a farm bill but a food stamp bill.

The history is that in 1964 we made food stamps permanent. In 1973 we combined the food stamp portion with the farm bill to ease passage of both votes--to make it easier to spend money. That has worked pretty well because when the food stamp bill was first passed, it cost $375 million--million--per year. Really, 500,000 people were eligible. Since that point in time it is now going to cost $772 billion over 10 years. It is now 78 percent the size of this entire package.

Again, I think it is more than appropriate to split these bills in two so both bills, the food stamp bill and the farm bill, would get more scrutiny and there would be more debate.

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