"All of a sudden, a Farm Bill deal looks close at hand," reports Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network, citing unnamed "lawmakers from both sides of the aisle" who he writes told him that "the broad outlines of a farm bill agreement are coming together," but it remains to be seen whether President Bush will agree to the price tag.
"The deal would reportedly spend just under $10 billion over the congressional budget baseline for farm programs and would fund it without increasing taxes," Shinn writes. The White House had threatened to veto any version adding more than $8 billion, but Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., told Shinn, "Once you have at least the House and Senate agreeing on a number, hopefully there would be room then for agreement between conferees and the White House." And Shinn adds that Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., "told Brownfield Wednesday if there’s a deal in place that most in Congress can live with, a presidential farm bill veto could become irrelevant" because two-thirds of each chamber would vote to override the veto. "The question would be if whether or not the House could get the votes to do that," Thune said.
But even if House and Senate negotiators agree on the price tag, "Thune added that the issue then becomes how quickly farm policy can be made to fit the available money, which he called 'the hard part.' That’s why Thune said he believes another one-month extension of the 2002 farm bill is likely, which would put a new farm bill in place by mid-April," Shinn writes. (Read more)
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