House Overrides Veto of Farm Bill

The bill assures growers of basic crops such as wheat, cotton, corn and soybeans $5 billion a year in automatic payments, even if farm and food prices stay at record levels. And subsidies for the ethanol industry will decline only slightly, leaving largely intact support for the biofuel industry, which has been blamed for contributing to higher food prices.

An unusual coalition of urban liberals and Republican fiscal conservatives tried to sustain Bush's veto. "Merely because the president is not the most popular person in the country today doesn't mean he's always wrong," said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), who pushed for sweeping changes to the farm-support system.

But that coalition was overwhelmed by the larger bipartisan coalition committed to defending rural constituents, food stamp and school nutrition programs, and new benefits for African American farmers. Nutrition programs will consume about two-thirds of the spending.

"This is a bill about feeding the hungry," pleaded Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.). "This president is turning his back on the people of America."

Hundreds of grass-roots organizations, including food banks, supported the legislation. The National Farmers Union rallied more than 1,000 organizations in favor of the override.

"Although it's pork to most of the country, it's prime rib to the farm belt," Davis said.

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