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Congress sends farm bill to White House
By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate sent a $289 billion farm bill including billions of dollars in new money to help feed poor Americans to the White House on Thursday, defying President George W. Bush to veto it.
Lawmakers say they can easily override a veto and could enact the five-year farm bill as law by the end of next week. Bush promised on Tuesday to veto the bill on grounds it subsidizes multimillionaire farmers while Americans face higher food prices.
Two-thirds of farm bill spending would go to public nutrition programs. Ten million people would benefit from changes in the food-stamp program. An additional $125 million a year would be spent on donations to food pantries.
All told, $10.3 billion would be added to nutrition programs over 10 years, including $7.9 billion for food stamps. With food prices forecast to rise by 4.5 percent this year, lawmakers said the farm bill would bring a sweeping expansion of food programs.
"We have tremendous help in this bill for those families," said Sen. Robert Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, referring to food-stamp participants. Nearly 28 million people receive food stamps each month.
Senators gave final congressional approval to the bill by a veto-proof margin of 81-15. The House passed the bill, 312-106, on Wednesday. To override a veto, each chamber must call a new vote and pass the bill by a two-thirds majority.
In the end, food assistance displaced farm-subsidy reform as the leading issue. Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, said "honestly, there aren't a lot" of farmers who will be affected by language to block the wealthiest Americans from collecting subsidies.
Among the changes in the food-stamp program are a larger minimum monthly benefit, changes in asset limits to qualify for aid and larger deductions for child care and other costs when calculating benefits. The minimum benefit was frozen at $10 a month three decades ago.
(Reporting by Charles Abbott, editing by Matthew Lewis)
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