FreedomWorks Foundation Content

See How Your Reps. Voted on the House Farm Bill Here!

Today, the House of Representatives voted on the so-called “Farm Bill”, H.R. 1947. This bill, which is 80% food stamps and 100% fiscally irresponsible, failed 195-234. FreedomWorks is scoring NO votes on this bill on our online Congressional Scorecard.

For a breakdown of the multitude of reasons that this bill is terrible policy, check out my post on RedState HERE, or FreedomWorks’ Key Vote letter to the Senate HERE

Sadly, in spite of the nearly trillion dollars in wasteful spending in this bill, it was Democrats, not the supposedly limited-government Republicans, who killed the bill. In the end, a minuscule cut to food stamps caused most of the House Democrats to snap and oppose the bill.  Thus, 172 Democrats voted against it, compared to only 62 Republicans.

The outcome of this vote outlines the inherent corruption of the current farm bill – if you reduce food stamp spending, Democrats will kill the bill, and if you reduce agricultural subsidies Republicans will kill the bill.  To the incentive is to keep the status quo, in which both parties win and the taxpayers lose.

You can see how your Representative voted HERE.

It is important to note that the Republican leadership could have attracted the support of many of the conservatives who voted against the bill if they had just allowed votes on amendments to make major reforms to key parts of the bill. Instead, they kept the best conservative reforms to food stamps and crop insurance off the floor and ensured that the final bill would continue to harvest taxpayer dollars to sow bad policies.