Agriculture at Center of Latest Budget Situation

Agriculture spending is at the center of what has become a protracted effort by House Republicans to produce a budget resolution that would aid the party in being able to use reconciliation to move major legislative efforts forward with only a simple majority vote.At issue is cuts totaling $50 billion from mandatory programs under the purview of the House Agriculture Committee. Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, has repeatedly argued his panel needs to exempt from finding savings under that potential $50 billion reduction. The overall cuts in the budget would total $200 billion over 10 years, but even that figure is in question, according to some.The situation has already resulted in House Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black, R-Tenn., shelving introducing the budget resolution in the committee this week for a vote Thursday. Resistance from Conaway and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., have kept Black from being able to seal a deal to move the resolution ahead.While contacts indicate Black insists she has the votes, she is unwilling to move ahead until she can convince committee chairs to come up with the extra $50 billion in spending reductions.But Conaway, whose committee is in the process of writing the next farm bill, argues his panel can ill afford to make any reductions at this stage. "I've been making our case as to why leaving us alone ... makes the most sense for the struggles that we face during the farm bill and ... the horrible circumstances that production agriculture finds itself in right now," Conaway recently stated.But even the $200 billion may not be enough, according to House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C. He has proposed $295 billion in cuts over 10 years that he insists moderates will agree to or be comfortable with. "There was never agreement on $200 billion," Meadows told reporters. "That was an offer put out there."Given the financial woes facing U.S. agriculture in the form of low prices for commodities and the prospect of hefty production for corn and soybeans, Conaway said he believes he has a good case for keeping his panel from taking additional cuts before completing the farm bill. He knows his panel will be under pressure to produce savings when it writes the plan under a still-to-be-determined baseline that will most certainly not provide him with the same level of funding.