Boehner says he supports Ffarm bill

From The Washington Post:

House Speaker John Boehner says he will vote for a wide-ranging farm bill headed to the House floor this month, a major boost for the five year, half-trillion dollar legislation that stalled in the House last year.

The Ohio Republican voted against the last farm bill in 2008 and said Wednesday that he has concerns with this year’s version as well. But doing nothing, Boehner said, means “that we get no changes in the farm program, no changes in the nutrition program.”

Almost 80 percent of the almost $100 billion-a-year bill’s cost goes to food stamps, which have more than doubled in cost since 2008. The farm bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee last month cuts that program by a little more than 3 percent and makes it harder for some people to qualify. The bill also eliminates some farm subsidies, including a $5 billion-a-year support that pays farmers whether they farm or not.

At the same time the bill expands other subsidies, creating a new crop insurance program and boosting support for several individual crops. Overall, the bill saves about $4 billion a year.

Boehner said that whatever his own concerns with the legislation, he wants to see it move to a House-Senate conference.

“I’m going to vote for the farm bill to make sure that the good work of the Agriculture Committee and whatever the floor might do to improve this bill gets to a conference so that we can get the kind of changes that people want in our nutrition programs and in our farm programs,” he said.