Senate Coalition Favors Cutting Farm Subsidies

A bipartisan Senate coalition handed the Reagan Administration a major farm policy victory Wednesday by signaling strong support for a proposal to reduce income subsidies to grain, cotton and rice farmers after a one-year freeze.

By a vote of 55 to 42, the Senate tabled, or killed, a move to strip the one-year freeze--followed by three years of subsidy cuts--from a massive farm bill. An alternative four-year freeze, backed by Democratic leaders, also remained in the bill, but the vote clearly showed the Senate’s preference for the much less costly one-year plan.

The action, which met the Administration’s primary demand for cutting the huge costs of farm programs, put the Senate at odds with a House decision last month to keep the multibillion-dollar subsidies at current levels for at least five years.

Wagonload of ‘Sweeteners’

The Senate voted after Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) dumped a wagonload of “sweeteners” into a pending farm bill, inducing six Republicans and three Democrats to switch sides on the politically explosive subsidy issue.

For example, Dole turned around Sen. Mark Andrews (R-N.D.) with provisions benefiting sunflower, sugar beet and soybean growers. Dole won over Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) with a soybean sweetener and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) with a provision paying farmers to plant trees on erodible land.

On another key vote, Sens. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) and David Pryor (D-Ark.) supported Dole after a provision aiding rice farmers was added. Similarly, Sens. Russell B. Long (D-La.) and J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) were lured to Dole’s view with new hurricane disaster aid for farmers.

The Senate action broke a three-week impasse during which Republicans and Democrats had jockeyed furiously on an issue that Democrats hope will help them recapture control of the Senate in next year’s congressional elections.

Twelve of the 22 Republican Senate seats up for reelection are in heavily agricultural states that are experiencing the worst economic crisis in six decades.

The net fiscal effect of cutting income subsidies and other programs--while increasing benefits elsewhere--was to trim about $10 billion from a bill that the Administration contends is $30 billion over budget.

Dole said that Budget Director James C. Miller III had suggested that about $5 billion more would have to be cut from the bill for it to be acceptable to President Reagan. But Dole said he hopes to persuade Reagan to agree to a lesser amount.

Pressure for Compromise

In any case, the Senate hopes to finish its version of the legislation this week. Differences between the Senate and House-passed bills will have to be worked out in a conference committee that will be under pressure to produce a compromise before Christmas.

The Senate action Wednesday concerned an income support system in which the government pays up to $50,000 to each farmer to make up the difference between actual market prices and higher “target” prices established by Congress.

The Administration estimates that a four-year freeze of target prices would cost $13 billion more than a one-year freeze that was combined with a 5% reduction in each of the next three years.

The bill reported by the Senate Agriculture Committee was similar to a measure voted by the House last month that provided a five-year freeze of target prices.

Dole offered a substitute measure Wednesday that included both the one-year freeze pushed by the Administration and Senate Republican leaders--and the four-year freeze promoted by Democratic leaders and several farm-state Republicans.

Dole said his bizarre gambit of including rival plans in the same bill was intended solely to speed the bill to the Senate-House conference, where negotiators could settle on a compromise. But Sen. John Melcher (D-Mont.), urging defeat of the proposal, protested that Dole would stack Senate conferees in favor of a one-year freeze.

To gain support for his substitute bill, Dole added the long list of sweeteners--one of which would expand a soil conservation program to 40 million acres from 25 million, prompting enthusiastic applause from the Sierra Club.

The Senate voted 56 to 41 for the Dole proposal. Eleven Democrats and 45 Republicans--including California Sens. Alan Cranston (D) and Pete Wilson (R)--voted for it, while six Republicans and 35 Democrats voted against it.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), complaining that a one-year freeze would drive even more farmers out of business in his depressed state, then sought to strip the provision from Dole’s measure. His move was tabled, 55 to 42.

Although neither the Senate nor House bills incorporate sweeping cutbacks proposed last January by Reagan, they both move toward a “market-oriented” policy by reducing crop price supports. And the Senate bill now moves even further in that direction by cutting direct income subsidies.