Congressional Research Service: House farm bill would save $52 billion, Senate bill $18 billion
October 15, 2013 | 01:27 PM
The House-passed farm bill would save $51.9 billion over 10 years in baseline spending while the Senate bill would save only $17.9 billion, according to a new Congressional Research Office comparison of the bills completed late last week.
The Hagstrom Report obtained a copy of the analysis. Jim Monke, the Congressional Research Service specialist on agriculture policy who wrote it, was excepted from the government shutdown, a Capitol Hill source said.
The main difference between the two bills is that the House bill would reduce nutrition payments by $39 billion over 10 years while the Senate bill would reduce nutrition programs by only $3.9 billion.
The Senate bill reduces farm programs by $13.9 billion, slightly more than the House's reduction of $12.9 billion.
The update is the first to combine the House-passed farm and nutrition bills and to compare them with the comprehensive Senate-passed bill.
The report noted that in May, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the current farm bill programs, if they were to continue beyond the 2008 farm bill, would cost $973 billion over the next 10 years (FY2014-FY2023).
About $764 billion of this amount is for nutrition programs and the other $208 billion is divided among various agriculture-related programs, CBO said, but this baseline estimate already has been reduced by $6.4 billion over the same period because of the budget sequestration ordered on March 1.
The Hagstrom Report obtained a copy of the analysis. Jim Monke, the Congressional Research Service specialist on agriculture policy who wrote it, was excepted from the government shutdown, a Capitol Hill source said.
The main difference between the two bills is that the House bill would reduce nutrition payments by $39 billion over 10 years while the Senate bill would reduce nutrition programs by only $3.9 billion.
The Senate bill reduces farm programs by $13.9 billion, slightly more than the House's reduction of $12.9 billion.
The update is the first to combine the House-passed farm and nutrition bills and to compare them with the comprehensive Senate-passed bill.
The report noted that in May, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the current farm bill programs, if they were to continue beyond the 2008 farm bill, would cost $973 billion over the next 10 years (FY2014-FY2023).
About $764 billion of this amount is for nutrition programs and the other $208 billion is divided among various agriculture-related programs, CBO said, but this baseline estimate already has been reduced by $6.4 billion over the same period because of the budget sequestration ordered on March 1.
