EWG, Flake call for end of direct payments
September 10, 2013 | 06:46 PM
The Environmental Working Group released a small study today showing that 18,276 residents of the nation’s 54 largest cities received the direct payments that farmers get whether prices are high or low in 2012.
The amount that went to big-city dwellers is relatively small since the $4.9 billion in direct payments go to more than a million people nationwide, but EWG Senior Vice President Scott Faber said that the point is that there should be “no income-support [for farmers] unless they’ve suffered a loss.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who voted against the farm bill and has been a long-term critic of the direct payments program, participated in the news conference and said that he still believes an extension of the 2008 farm bill is more likely than passage of a new bill.
Faber said that if Congress extends the farm bill it should take the direct-payment budget authority and use it for other purposes, since both the Senate and the House have voted to end direct payments.
The amount that went to big-city dwellers is relatively small since the $4.9 billion in direct payments go to more than a million people nationwide, but EWG Senior Vice President Scott Faber said that the point is that there should be “no income-support [for farmers] unless they’ve suffered a loss.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who voted against the farm bill and has been a long-term critic of the direct payments program, participated in the news conference and said that he still believes an extension of the 2008 farm bill is more likely than passage of a new bill.
Faber said that if Congress extends the farm bill it should take the direct-payment budget authority and use it for other purposes, since both the Senate and the House have voted to end direct payments.
