As Farm Bill Nears Vote, Bush Presses for Fewer Subsidies

For House Republicans from rural areas, however, a veto would pose tough choices. Last July, all but 19 voted against the House version of the farm bill after Democrats added tax increases to finance the package. Although the tax provisions have been removed from the current version, GOP lawmakers still could face pressure to support a presidential veto.

The veto calculus came into play Thursday night when House Democratic conferees tried to add a provision that would have prohibited private contractors from managing food stamp programs for state governments. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) warned that the measure would draw a veto that House Republicans would feel bound to support.

Conrad then voted against the Democratic initiative, helping to kill it. "He is opposed to privatization of food stamps, but he did it to save the farm bill," said spokesman Sean Neary.

Current rules allow farmers to collect federal subsidy payments if their adjusted gross incomes are as high as $2.5 million. The administration favors ending payments completely for those whose adjusted gross incomes from non-farm sources is above $200,000. The purpose is to cut the wealthiest farmers from the 70-year-old subsidy system, considered increasingly outdated as farms have consolidated and grown.

Last week, congressional negotiators proposed a $500,000 cutoff. Under that proposal, however, a person still could earn as much as $950,000 from farming operations before any reduction of direct payments. Those payments would not end entirely until farm income rose to $1.95 million.

At the same time, the lawmakers have proposed increasing maximum direct payments from $40,000 to $50,000 a year.

"This is not reform and does not move Congress closer to a plan the president would sign," said Chuck Conner, deputy agriculture secretary.

Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, noted that negotiators also had approved a 2 percent across-the-board reduction in direct payments, but that farmers above the income cutoff would escape that provision.

"The rich get richer, and the rank and file fade away," he said.

Peterson acknowledged Friday that the formula presents problems. "We still don't have this nailed down," he said. Progress, he added, has been slowed by uncertainty over what would satisfy the White House.

Last week, negotiators also weakened key environmental legislation, which could lead to some fraying of support.

Legislation approved by the House and Senate would have denied subsidized crop insurance to farmers who plow up virgin prairie to plant crops. That provision, aimed at protecting prime bird habitat, was changed to allow state governors to decide whether to implement the program.

Dan Morgan is a contract writer for The Post and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan policy institute.