WHY I’M 95% SURE THEY WILL GET THE 2018 FARM BILL DONE ON TIME AND WONT SIGN AN EXTENSION TO THE 2014 FARM BILL INSTEAD
Because the most significant difference between the House and Senate is in the SNAP (Food stamps) Program
The Republican-dominated House would like to reduce SNAP and the Bipartisan Senate wants to leave it essentially unchanged
Now would be the best chance for the Republicans to change SNAP, because the Democrats are going to gain House seats in the 2018 midterm elections, which means the same bill wouldn’t be able to pass the House next year — remember, because of the changes to SNAP, the House only passed their Farm Bill 213-211 with no Democratic votes
Now if the Senate doesn’t cave and refuses to change SNAP, it wouldn’t make any sense for that to be the reason why the House/Republicans don’t sign on, because their desired SNAP reductions definitely won’t happen next year, either
So you may be wondering, why can’t the House/Republicans just refuse to pass the Farm Bill out of partisan spite?
Because with farming revenue down over 50% during the past 5 years, alongside the retaliatory tariffs on largely Republican farmers right now, not passing the 2018 Farm Bill would bear a tremendous political cost during the 2018 midterms
And that’s the last thing Trump would want, given the threat of impeachment if Democrats take over the House, so he doesn’t want to sign an extension, either
So if I am correct, then the only real question left is why would the Senate allow Hemp Legalization to be excluded from the final Farm Bill?
With the Congressional head of the Republican Party, Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Hemp” McConnell, driving the hemp legalization legislation in the Senate version of the Farm Bill, and Senate Democrats strongly supporting it, the Senate wouldn’t make that kind of great sacrifice unless an equal or higher value issue was under threat of exclusion and Hemp Legalization was sacrificed as some part of a trade
So do House Republicans hate the idea of hemp legalization as much as the Senate Democrats love the idea of keeping SNAP unchanged?
Would House Republicans say to the Senate, “If you take out Hemp Legalization, we will remove our SNAP reductions?”
I don’t think so, given that Hemp has 90% support from Democrats and 70% support from Republicans, whereas SNAP reductions have 0% support from Democrats, 95% support from House Republicans and 60% support from Senate Republicans, for a blended Republican average of 77.5% — so it’s a bipartisan issue vs. a partisan issue
A power struggle between Chamber leaders would basically come down to a battle between Mitch, the most powerful man in Congress and currently gaining power versus a less powerful man in Congress, Paul, who is currently losing power and will be retiring after the elections
Mitch’s baby Hemp Legalization versus Paul’s baby Welfare Reform
I don’t see Paul winning this battle
And this is all without mentioning that Hemp Legalization is part of the pre-election Republican strategic agenda this year
In the end, I think Trump being President has an impact on the negotiations, and the Senate agrees to a minor compromise on SNAP — reducing it by only a small fraction of what was contained in the House version
This will allow both parties to be able to declare victory to their constituents with respect to SNAP
VATE & SIPC
Sleek
AI
