Sen. Chuck Grassley today announced that he plans to offer an amendment to limit farm payments during debate of the nation's spending plan before the Senate Budget committee. The budget sets taxing and spending parameters and provides a blueprint for Congress as it crafts legislation in the coming year.
"Farm payments that were originally designed to benefit small and medium-sized family farmers have contributed to their own demise," Grassley said. "Limiting farm payments to those who need it most is the right thing to do. Rural America can't continue to withstand the pressure that unlimited payments create. These sky-high farm payments to the biggest of the big are placing upward pressure on land prices and contributing to overproduction and lower commodity prices, which are driving many family farmers off the farm."
Grassley's amendment assumes a limit of $40,000 for direct payments, $60,000 for counter-cyclical payments, and $200,000 for loan deficiency payments and marketing loan gains.
Grassley said the $1.221 billion savings from his payment limit proposal will be applied against the reductions suffered by the Conservation Security Program, the Value Added Development Grant Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. The amendment will also provide new funding for much needed flexibility and growth in Child Nutrition and additional resources to increase efforts to insure program integrity and accountability.
During the last year's budget debate, Grassley sponsored similar legislation to limit farm payments. The amendment passed the budget committee but was taken out during negotiations with the House of Representatives. During the farm bill debate in the 107th Congress, Grassley sponsored a bipartisan amendment that passed the Senate 66 to 31. Grassley said that amendment was critical to family farmers in Iowa and when the farm bill failed to effectively address this issue, Iowa was hurt.