FreedomWorks Key Vote NO on the Farm Bill Conference Report in the Senate

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators and ask that they vote NO on cloture for the Farm Bill conference report, H.R. 2462.  This final agreement reached between the House and Senate actually manages to be worse than the bills passed by each chamber separately, and does nothing to contain the hundreds of billions in spending on corporate welfare for farm corporations and an out-of-control food stamp program.

After spending several months germinating in a conference committee, the Farm Bill that has suddenly sprouted in Congress is a nearly $1 trillion debacle that renews nearly every bit of the original bill’s market-distorting crop insurance subsidies and price supports for five years. 

In addition, Senate Republicans who vote for this bill are conceding the defeat of the one good accomplishment of last year’s contentious Farm Bill negotiations – the separation of food stamps from the main agricultural portion of the bill. Allowing food stamps to continue to be used like a giant earmark to attract the votes of urban members of Congress guarantees that the program will see no significant reforms, even as it spends over $700 billion in the next ten years. 

A trillion dollars of corporate welfare and food stamps – and the bill will certainly exceed its spending estimates, as its predecessors have. Instead of kicking this can down the road another five unaffordable years, those who truly care about limiting government should put a stop to the Farm Bill now and insist upon actual reforms.

For these reasons, I urge you to call your senators and ask them to vote NO on cloture for the Farm Bill conference report. We will count their vote as a KEY VOTE when calculating FreedomWorks’ Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2014. The Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress who consistently vote to support economic freedom.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe

President and CEO 

FreedomWorks