Senate, House Vote Farm Relief Bills : Agriculture-State Republicans Unite With Democrats Despite Veto Threat

Over the opposition of Republican leaders in Congress and a veto threat by President Reagan, farm-state Republicans joined with Democrats Wednesday to steer emergency aid for the nation’s farmers through both the House and the Senate.

But the relief measures, approved in different form by the two chambers, require further congressional action. And Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) predicted that the final legislation ultimately will die, either because its supporters will fail to press it to a final vote or because Reagan will veto it.

“It’s never going to become law,” Dole declared.

At the White House, spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan had a “twinkle in his eye” when he told a meeting of Republican senators: “I’m anxious to veto something.” Reagan, who is proposing deep cuts in federal aid to agriculture, regards the bail-out measure as a budget buster that would merely make farmers more dependent on the federal government.

Eight GOP Defectors

The Senate-passed measure, approved on a 54-45 vote with the help of eight GOP defectors, would include $1.85 billion in new loan guarantees. It would also provide $100 million to “buy down” bank interest rates to farmers by two percentage points if the banks agree to write down interest rates by another two points on their own.

The House voted 318 to 103 to add $3 billion in loan guarantees and to make advance loans at planting time to farmers who normally would collect the money at harvest. Eighty-four Republicans voted with the majority in the House.

The Senate later voted 50 to 48 for an advance payments measure similar to the House bill. The two Senate measures were attached to an African famine relief bill.

The Democrats, who have seized upon the farm crisis partly for political advantage, charged that neither Reagan nor the Republican congressional leadership cares about the American farmer.

If Reagan vetoes the legislation, Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.) said, “we’ll let the people of the United States register what they think of that two years from now” in the 1986 congressional elections. Four of the eight Republican senators who voted for the bail-out will be up for reelection in 1986.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) hailed Wednesday’s voting as a much-needed victory for Democrats. “I look at it as the old coalition of the Democratic Party coming together when we find that one segment of our economy is in a desperate plight.”

An extraordinary lobbying effort by rural state legislators--including more than 100 members of the South Dakota Legislature--was credited with helping the Democrats prevail in the Republican-controlled Senate. And Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) planted 250 white crosses representing failed farms in the park across from the White House on Wednesday to protest Reagan’s stand.

On the Administration’s side, Agriculture Secretary John R. Block twisted arms of rebellious farm-state Republicans and Vice President George Bush was forced to delay a scheduled trip to Texas in case his vote was needed to break a Senate tie.

Republicans condemned the emergency farm aid as unnecessary after the Administration’s promise last week to provide unlimited loan guarantees through the Farmers Home Administration to help farmers who could not otherwise qualify for loans to finance their spring planting.

In addition, Dole argued that the interest subsidies in the Senate-passed amendment authored by Sen. Edward Zorinsky (D-Neb.) would do more to help bankers than farmers.

“I would submit that this provision is not in the least inspired by concerns for the welfare of the farmers in need of financing this spring,” Dole said. “It is nothing more than a bank grab for $100 million from taxpayers.”

But Sen. Mark Andrews (R-N.D.), a co-sponsor of the Zorinsky amendment, argued that, by helping the bankers, Congress would actually save tax dollars. Otherwise, he said, the farmers unable to get regular bank loans would turn to the Farmers Home Administration.

“What’s evil about helping the bankers help the farmers?” Sen. Spark M. Matsunaga (D-Hawaii) asked.

Like a Senate-passed amendment sponsored by Sen. Alan Dixon (D-Ill.), the House bill would allow qualifying farmers to obtain loans worth half the expected value of their crops, up to $50,000, even before they plant them.

The Administration estimates that the one-time advance loans could cost as much as $8.7 billion if many of the financially pressed farmers defaulted on their loans. However, the House Agriculture Committee insisted that total costs are not likely to exceed $405 million.

Rep. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who drafted the House plan, argued that failure to pass the legislation ultimately would prove more expensive. “What we are doing is building a bridge--a bridge that we hope will lead to a vastly better farm economy,” he said.

“This is a Band-Aid approach, but it is also an act of survivability,” said Rep. E. Thomas Coleman of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee. “We’re dealing with a loss of a way of life.”

House Democrats played down the threat of a presidential veto. “I think probably we could override in the House,” O’Neill told reporters.

In the Senate, Democrats admitted that they lack the votes to override a Reagan veto, but they expressed doubt that Reagan would live up to his threat to veto legislation that is proving politically popular. Harkin noted that past Presidents have failed to follow through veto threats.

But Speakes said: “I can guarantee you that the President is going to have his pencil sharp (for) any budget busting bill, sharper than ever before.”

Even if Reagan vetoes emergency farm aid, Democrats said, the support for it in Congress portends a tough battle later this year when the Administration presses its proposal to trim existing agriculture subsidies.

As Exon said: “It sends a pretty clear signal: There are enough votes on the floor of the U.S. Senate to wreck, derail, drive into the ditch the non-farm bill the President has proposed.”