It is actually rather reasonable if you care about conservation and feeding low-income Americans:
House unveils $1.5 trillion farm bill after long delayThe legislation is one of the few must-pass bills left for Congress this yearIn addition to major boosts in critical farm safety net program funding to support farmers reeling from grueling inflation, Thompson’s bill doubles key trade promotion to develop and support new markets for farmers to sell their products abroad. It also increases funding for specialty crop programs, expands access to programs that lower energy costs for farmers and rural small businesses and improves tracking of farmland purchases by entities from China and other adversary countries.
The House bill also includes two of the major provisions that have drawn staunch opposition from senior Democrats. One would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which serves as the basis for calculating benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program for low-income Americans. That could prevent a future Democratic administration from increasing SNAP benefits by as little as 23 cents per day in the years 2027 or 2032, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. It also could stop a future GOP president from dramatically rolling back President Joe Biden’s major expansion of SNAP. Food benefits would still increase based on inflation, and nutrition programs would still make up more than 80 percent of the total farm bill spending under the policy.
The House farm bill would actually expand immediate access to SNAP and other anti-hunger efforts like strained food banks and nutrition improvements for seniors. In a major move, the legislation gets rid of the current lifetime ban on low-income Americans with a previous felony drug conviction from receiving SNAP benefits.
