Key Vote NO on the Farm Bill Conference Report in the House

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask that he or she vote NO on the Farm Bill conference report in the House, 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, in attempting to pass this bill, the House Republican leadership is reneging on 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. 

Finally, the House leadership has once again brought up a giant (this time 950-page) bill with not even two full days to read it. This is the irresponsible practice of a body concerned only with perpetuating its own profligate spending habits, and not that of a Republican majority committed to limiting government.

For these reasons, I urge you to call your representative and ask him or her to vote NO on 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