ISSUE / FARM AID : House ‘City Boys’ Battle to Cut $12-Billion Subsidy Program

The government’s $12-billion farm subsidy program, a perennial target of budget cutters, is under fire this year from a new and surprising quarter--a bipartisan alliance of “city boys” who are doing battle with the powerful agriculture Establishment within Congress and without.

Rep. Dick Armey, a Dallas Republican, and Rep. Charles E. Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat, are leading an underdog campaign to trim government payments to farmers and knock out some programs they contend do little but raise prices paid by consumers.

They have enlisted more than a score of other House members representing urban constituencies to join the battle when the House Agriculture Committee brings its 1990 farm bill to the floor this month.

It will be an uphill fight. Beneficiaries of the subsidies, ranging from wheat and corn farmers in the Midwest to cotton and rice farmers in the South and dairy farmers across the nation, have traditionally united to crush any opposition. House Democratic and Republican leaders, often at odds, usually close ranks behind the farm bill when it comes up for renewal every five years.

This spring, however, the coalition being formed by Armey and Schumer has shaken the confidence of the farm bloc. And the federal budget squeeze is serving their cause.

“It’s a doozy for us to maintain the status quo--it’s tough,” conceded Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.), a solid member of the farm bloc who serves on the House Agriculture Committee.

The House committee, led by Rep. E (Kika) de la Garza (D-Tex.) and working closely with the Bush Administration, is expected to vote to reauthorize virtually all the price support and export subsidy programs at the same level as the 1985 farm bill, which expires this fall.

De la Garza has said U.S. farm programs provide the American people with more food of higher quality at lower prices than anywhere else in the world. As for the programs’ multibillion-dollar price tag, he said: “Probably more people cheated on their income tax in one state than all the money that goes to farmers.”

But the farm bloc has a formidable foe in Armey, who triumphed over the House Armed Services Committee last year with a bill to shut obsolete military bases. Armey argues that the farm programs are riddled with unnecessary government payments that do little more than raise the cost of food in the supermarket.

“At a time when the entire world has been discovering the virtues of the free economy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has continued to regulate, protect and subsidize one of our largest industries,” Armey said.

Schumer, another of the “city boys,” observed that farm-state congressmen dominate the Agriculture Committee. “We think the agriculture bill deserves some scrutiny from outside the Agriculture Committee,” he said.

The federal grain subsidy programs account for the bulk of federal farm spending, and Armey and Schumer want to bar federal payments to farmers with incomes greater than $100,000 a year and farms with gross sales exceeding $500,000 a year. They say it would save more than $1 billion a year.

“Why should rich people get any subsidies?” asked Schumer.

Congress tried to limit grain subsidies in 1985 by slapping a $50,000 ceiling on payments to any single farmer. But Schumer said aid recipients evaded the ceiling by splitting their farms into several pieces.

Another target of “Armey’s army” is honey. Congress’ General Accounting Office says the federal price support program for honey has been propping up honey prices since 1952, even though only 1% of all beekeepers benefit. “The program still serves little public purpose,” the GAO said, “but to raise the income of relatively few producers at a high cost to the public.”