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SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2010 Farm-aid proposal assailed as relief for Sen. Lincoln
Rain-battered growers in Arkansas among key beneficiaries
by Alec MacGillis
The Obama administration is seeking $1.5 billion in disaster re- lief for farmers, a move that could boost the reelection prospects of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) but that critics say circumvents es- tablished procedures.
Lincoln, the chairman of the
Agriculture Committee, has been seeking relief for rice and cotton farmers hurt by heavy rains that struck Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana last fall. She sought to include $1.1 billion in aid for those states, along with $400 million for farmers else- where, in a small-business bill that Democrats are trying to pass. To improve the bill’s prospects,
Senate leaders asked Lincoln to withdraw the $1.5 billion, with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pledging that the gov- ernment would provide it sep- arately. Robert L. Nabors II, act- ing deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, fol- lowed up in an Aug. 6 letter to Lincoln: “I want to assure you that the Administration is com- mitted to providing assistance consistent with your legislative
proposal by the end of this month.”
But the administration is still looking for the money. “We are working to identify administra- tive authorities and funding,” OMB spokesman Kenneth Baer said last week. And the deal is coming under widespread criti- cism.
Black lawmakers note that the administration and Congress have yet to come up with $1.2 bil- lion owed black farmers under the settlement of a major dis- crimination lawsuit. Republicans say there is no money for the re- quest. And groups opposed to farm subsidies say it would show- er money on large farms that suf- fered few losses and undermine the relief policies established by the 2008 farm bill. “The whole debate in 2008 was
that we were going to put an end to this ad hoc stuff,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environ- mental Working Group. “If they want to hold on to any principle, we ought not to be writing checks from the treasury every time someone asks.” Agriculture Committee spokes- woman Courtney Rowe respond- ed to questions with a brief state- ment. “Chairman Lincoln is ac- tively working with both [the Department of Agriculture] and OMB on the details of the dis- aster assistance and is confident that she will be able to announce
CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Obama administration is helping Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who is behind in the polls, pursue disaster relief for rice and cotton farmers.
them before the end of the month,” Rowe said. After Lincoln trumpeted the White House’s pledge, her Repub- lican opponent, Rep. John Booz- man, who has a wide lead in Ar- kansas polls, called it an attempt “to bail out somebody who’s in a difficult election by somehow coming up with money that there are real questions about whether they have the authority to do it.” Underlying the dispute is the
effort to make the $20 billion farm subsidy program more need-based and less abuse-prone. The 2008 farm bill sought to re- place improvised payments with
a new program, Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE), under which farmers in disaster areas would receive stan- dard, formula-based payments. Farmers must have crop insur- ance to qualify, a rule meant to encourage them to buy coverage, which is itself heavily subsidized by the government. But many farmers in the South have not signed up for coverage, possibly because disaster policies are tai- lored mostly to drought, which is less of a threat in the South than in some other regions. To show precedence for Lin- coln’s proposal — which would
not require farmers to have insur- ance — the Agriculture Commit- tee produced a list of 19 instances of ad hoc farm relief between 1999 and 2006. Several are con- troversial, such as a $940 million livestock compensation program in 2002 that paid ranchers and dairy farmers based on the size of their herds, not their losses. Critics say Lincoln’s request would produce similar inequi- table results while undermining the case for crop insurance. They note that it would require farm- ers to demonstrate only a 5 per- cent crop loss, far less than the usual 30 percent trigger, and hardly bigger than the variations many farms normally experience. They also note that relief pay- ments would be based not on the size of the loss but on the size of a farm’s usual subsidy. Farmers meeting the 5 percent threshold would receive relief equal to 90 percent of their reg- ular subsidies. As a result, a large farm claiming a 5 percent loss would receive hundreds of thou- sands of dollars, and a small farm claiming a much bigger loss would get far less. The Environmental Working Group calculates that the pay- ments to Southern farmers would total $1.6 billion, not $1.1 billion, of which $210million would go to Arkansas, with 270 farms in the state eligible for more than $100,000 each. The group identi-
fies five large farms in Arkansas and Louisiana that would get at least $500,000 each, with the largest getting nearly $800,000, on top of the $874,000 in regular subsidies it received in 2009. Campaign finance documents show that an ownership partner of one of the five farms, Balmoral Farming Partnership, gave Lin- coln’s campaign $1,000 campaign in December. The chairman of the House Ag-
riculture Committee, Democrat Collin C. Peterson (Minn.), a staunch supporter of farm sub- sidies, has expressed ambiva- lence about the payments. “My staff tells me there is no way they can do this administratively,” he told AgWeek. “I don’t know what the heck Rahm was talking about.” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vil- sack also voiced doubt last week. "Obviously . . . it’s a little compli- cated because there’s not a direct congressional directive. There’s not a law. There’s not a specific program,” he said, according to DTN, a farm policy journal. “The question then becomes how, if you were to do what she’s asking us to do, if we were to do it, how would you do it in a way that would reinforce crop insurance and the SURE program? That’s part of what we are trying to fig- ure out right now. I don’t think we quite have it figured out yet."
macgillisa@washpost.com
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mittee spent twice as much as it raised in July, leaving the com- mittee with just over $5 million on hand with less than three months before the 2010 midterm elections. In a report filed Friday with the
Federal Election Commission, the RNC showed $5.5 million raised and more than $11million spent last month, including $1.5 million in transfers to state party committees. The committee ended July with $5.3million in the bank and $2.2million in debt. The Democratic National Com-
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mittee raised and spent $11.6mil- lion last month, including nearly $4 million in transfers to state parties. The DNC ended the pe- riod with $10.8million and $3.5million in debt. The dismal report comes less than a month after RNC Treas- urer Randy Pullen accused Chair- man Michael S. Steele of hiding $7 million in debts; the RNC filed amended reports last month de- tailing $3 million in previously unreported debts. The RNC’s money woes have become a significant concern for party strategists who have fretted that the committee’s financial standing could affect the party’s ability to capitalize on an election cycle shaping up to be a very good one for the GOP.
— Chris Cillizza
Obama warns of corporate donations
President Obama warned vot-
ers Saturday about the hidden in- fluence of corporate donations in midterm campaigns, after a Su- preme Court decision this year that allows companies, unions and other special interests to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of candidates and causes for the first time. In his weekly radio and Inter-
net address, Obama blamed Sen- ate Republicans for blocking leg- islation that would have placed restrictions on corporate or union campaign spending after the court’s Citizens United ruling lifted many of the regulations. “This can only mean that the leaders of the other party want to keep the public in the dark,” Oba- ma said. “They don’t want you to know which interests are paying for the ads. The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.” Last month, Senate Democrats did not muster enough votes to bring the legislation, known as the Disclose Act, to a vote, with Republicans opposing the meas- ure as a bloc. Republican leaders have said the Democrats are only pushing the legislation to pre- serve their majorities in the House and Senate this fall. “Americans want us to focus on jobs, but by focusing on an elec- tion bill, Democrats are sending a clear message to the American people that their jobs aren’t as important as the jobs of embat- tled Democrat politicians,” Sen- ate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said in an e-mail response to Obama’s address.
“The President says this bill is about transparency. It’s transpar- ent alright — it’s a transparent ef- fort to rig the fall elections.” — Scott Wilson
NEW YORK
Candidate: Turn jails into welfare dorms New York gubernatorial candi-
date Carl Paladino is touting a plan to turn state prisons into dormitories for welfare recipi- ents. Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer, said resi- dents would work in state-spon- sored jobs, receive employment training and take lessons in “per- sonal hygiene.” Guards from the underused prisons would be re- trained to work as counselors, he said. “These are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities,” said Paladino, who is competing for the Republican nomination with former congressman Rick Lazio. Throughout his campaign, Pal- adino — a favorite of many “tea party” activists — has criticized New York’s rich menu of social service benefits, which he says encourages illegal immigrants and needy people to live in the state. Paladino says the program would be voluntary, but some say the suggestion that poor families would be better off in remote in- stitutions — rather than among friends and family in their own neighborhoods — strikes them as insulting. Ketny Jean-Francois, a former welfare recipient and a New York City advocate for low-income people, said Paladino’s idea shocked her. “Being poor is not a crime,” she said. “People are on welfare for many reasons. . . . Is he saying people are poor be- cause they don’t have any hygiene or any skills?” Paladino first described the idea in June at a meeting of the Journal News of White Plains and spoke about it again last week with the Associated Press. The primary is Sept. 14. — Associated Press
USDA
Sherrod to meet with Vilsack on job offer
Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod says she is meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vil- sack on Tuesday to discuss a new job offer.
Sherrod was forced to resign last month after a conservative blogger posted excerpts from a March speech depicting her as racist. The NAACP and others, in- cluding the USDA, condemned the remarks before grasping the full context of the story, which was meant as a lesson in over- coming racism. The White House and the
NAACP have since apologized and Vilsack offered her a new po- sition.
Sherrod spoke Saturday in Ala-
bama at an event hosted by the Southern Cooperatives/Land As- sistance Fund. The nonprofit group helps family farms in the South, especially black-owned farms.
— Associated Press
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