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Some of the Republican hardliners in the House are warming up to the farm bill because of the massive cuts it makes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. Not so fast, say some conservative groups, for whom making people go hungry just isn't good enough.
"There's not a whole lot of excitement around this bill," among GOP conservatives, Dan Holler, vice president of Heritage Action, said last week at a briefing for reporters.
The pile-on began on Tuesday at the briefing by the Heritage Foundation, where the group’s political arm, Heritage Action, formally came out against the bill. On Wednesday the group joined about a dozen other right-leaning, free-market organizations in writing to Congress to denounce the legislation. And on Thursday, two conservative groups linked to the influential Koch brothers — Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners — penned a letter to Congress that said the bill moves the system farther away from free-market principles.
The groups took aim at some of the bill’s SNAP provisions, but their opposition is rooted in the farm policy side of the bill and, specifically, its lack of cutbacks to subsidy programs.
"Quite simply, respect for farmers doesn’t mean tolerance for wasting taxpayer money on handouts," read the letter signed by Heritage Action and 13 other groups. "Our organizations are taking farm subsidy reform very seriously in the upcoming farm bill debate.”
Sure, why not just freak out the farm states even more? Trade wars, tariffs, drought ... it's not like they don't have enough to worry about with Trump administration policies. Now, Republican groups are trying to get rid of the subsidies that might mitigate some of those losses. It's almost enough to make farm states abandon Trump. Or if not Trump, maybe some down-ballot Republicans in a midterm election. Looks like the farm bill might be in trouble again, even when it comes to just getting it through the House.