Now the RSC, hard-liners the Freedom Caucus and other Republicans are pushing to include similar measures in the next farm bill. Such a move would upend the fragile bipartisan coalition needed to pass the legislation — a blow to House Republicans who represent the majority of rural and agricultural districts, including Johnson, as well as more centrist members of the GOP who will fight to their political life in 2024. .
However, time is running out before the farm bill collapses at the end of the year. This massive plan funds programs aimed at the agricultural industry, food aid and rural America.
representative Dusty Johnson is the author of one of the major GOP bills to enact stricter SNAP work requirements. But the South Dakota Republican is urging lawmakers to pass an extension of the farm bill in the coming weeks, as well as a reauthorization of the farm bill as soon as possible.
“Failure to do so would hurt farm country and reflect poorly on Congress,” Johnson said.
As POLITICO was first reported, dozens of farm state lawmakers have been pressuring the new president to add an expansion of the current 2018 farm bill to any stopgap government funding measure ahead of another looming federal government shutdown on the 18th. november. Johnson did not object to the move, according to three Republican lawmakers who spoke with him and were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. As for passing a new farm bill, Johnson told lawmakers he wants to introduce the House version of the package next month, an ambitious timeline amid the government funding battle.
However, if Congress wants shorter funding, it would likely push back the House’s consideration of a new farm bill until 2024, according to the three Republican lawmakers. This would put much-needed legislation – a major step forward even in normal times – squarely in the crosshairs of the presidential election cycle.
Many Democrats worry that Johnson’s rise to the presidency will embolden Republican Party hard-liners eager to target nutrition spending in the farm bill.
Already, Johnson’s conservative allies are counting on him to maintain his past support for significant spending cuts and new restrictions on SNAP in the next farm bill, arguing that such measures are popular with middle-class voters . The price tag of the farm bill is expected to exceed $1 trillion for the first time and is already encounter resistance among dozens of wary Republican lawmakers.
representative Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who leads the Republican study committee, said his group is still pursuing new SNAP work requirements and other changes to the farm law — even after Republicans won new restrictions SNAP in the debt deal earlier this year.
“I can’t imagine that the Mike Johnson we know would pass up the opportunity to get as many conservative victories as possible in this farm bill,” said a Republican Party aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “And that means serious SNAP reforms.”
Democrats, whom House Republicans will likely need to get a farm bill across the finish line, vehemently dispute the GOP’s arguments on SNAP and work requirements.
representative Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Johnson was “100 percent wrong on SNAP,” which McGovern described as “one of the most effective tools we have to fight poverty.”
“Anyone who thinks the solution is more budget cuts is living in an alternate reality,” McGovern said.
Although Johnson is new to major leadership struggles, he gained brief experience navigating the politically sensitive topic of nutrition assistance within the disparate GOP ranks earlier this year.
Senior Republican officials dispatched Johnson, vice chairman of the House GOP conference at the time, and other colleagues to smooth things over. tensions that erupted among hardliners during final debt deal negotiations with the White House, after the Congressional Budget Office projected that the final deal would actually increase federal spending on SNAP and participation.
Johnson touted the legislation’s “historic achievements” in a later call with reporters about the bill’s new SNAP work requirements. He said these new rules “would not have been adopted by a Chuck Schumer-controlled the Senate by themselves. Johnson also noted that the SNAP changes only affected low-income older Americans without dependents and were “common sense, popular with the public and cost-saving.”
“So we’re going to make these programs a life preserver not a lifestyle, a helping hand not a handout,” Johnson said on the call, adding that Republicans were “proud of these reforms.”
Johnson, who is still assembling his team, has not yet dove into detailed planning for the next Farm Bill, according to the three Republican lawmakers who recently spoke with the new president.
A Republican senator said Johnson told them Wednesday that his priority for must-pass legislation was to first see what could pass the House, then worry about final passage and negotiate later with the Senate having a Democratic majority.
But impose deep spending cuts and new restrictions on food aid squeeze some of the House’s most vulnerable Republican lawmakers, including a handful of New York Republicans who represent districts Biden won in 2020 and face tough re-election battles next year. After the bruising debt ceiling battle earlier this year, many at-risk members are not eager to rehash the same arguments about slashing food aid to low-income people, a politically toxic proposal in many of their districts.
“We negotiated a new level of requirements on SNAP, and I think it’s time to move forward from there,” the representative said. Jean Duarte (R-Calif.) said in an interview this summer, following passage of the debt deal.
Several major U.S. farm groups and some Republican lawmakers have also warned that drastic measures to cut nutrition assistance would entirely jeopardize passage of the next farm bill.
Home farming chair GT Thompson (R-Pa.), who is leading the effort to write the House version of the bill, has made clear that he does not want to pursue new work requirements or significant spending reductions in SNAP that would trigger opposition major on the part of the Democrats.
House Republicans are essentially guaranteed to need Democratic votes to pass the next farm bill, given the slim GOP majority and opposition within the House GOP on major spending. Even some House Republicans, like Dusty Johnson, say the task at hand is important, given that there are “a number of hard-liners who are struggling to get a ‘yes’ vote on anything whether it be “.
“At the same time,” Johnson added, “you have pragmatic members of the farm state who are frustrated with the political games.”
