House Passes Farm Bill
Despite new Republican opposition after the late Democratic addition of a tax measure, the House voted in favor of the farm bill.
Sam Anderson
Published: Jul 27, 2007
After the House Agriculture Committee's farm bill - which left committee as a bipartisan bill - weathered new conservative criticism Friday, it passed by a final vote of 231-191. The bill will await Senate passage of its own farm bill after the August recess, at which point a joint committee will work out legislature to send to the White House.
Preaching fiscal responsibility, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns reiterated his criticisms of the House's farm bill Friday, pointing to the late addition of a measure, introduced by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, that Democrats say closes a loophole allowing businesses to set up headquarters offshore and dodge U.S. taxes. Republicans oppose the measure, calling it a tax increase.
As Johanns was speaking at the National Press Club, the House was in the middle of a heated debate on farm bill amendments. Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., called for the entire bill to be sent back to committee so that the tax measure could be removed.
Before the addition of the measure, the House Agriculture Committee touted the bill as a bipartisan effort. After it, legislators voted almost exclusively along party lines on whether or not to recommit the bill to committee.
The measure gave rise not only to strong criticism and veto threats from the administration - "never in the history of farm programs have farmers supported higher taxes on another industry to fund their own farm programs," Johanns said at the Press Club - but it also led to a heated exchange on the House floor.
Republicans contended that the measure is a tax increase, while Ways and Means Committee Chair Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., pointed out, "you have to get it from somewhere," adding that the bill should be seen not as a tax increase but as stopping businesses from exploiting a loophole that allowed them to dodge U.S. taxes.
While Republicans claimed the bill could return to committee and still make it back to the House floor for a vote, Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said that because the committee would not have enough offsets without Dogget's tax measure, " if you send this bill back to the agriculture committee • you are in effect killing this bill."
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