Word: pelosi
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This summer an unprecedented coalition, running the gamut of the advocacy world from rural development to health to business to the environment, emerged to help Kind and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona try to shake up the system. Editorials thundered for reform, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco--the city of organic kale and "meat is murder"--vowed to deliver it. The moment seemed ripe for Democrats to challenge the status quo. Agribusiness was steering two-thirds of its campaign donations to Republicans, and just 19 of the 435 congressional districts were vacuuming up half of all subsidies...
...right. Pelosi sided with the American Farm Bureau, the National Farmers Union and the Big Five commodity lobbies, spearheading a bill she called "a first step toward reform," an oblique way of saying it isn't reform at all. The Big Five would still hog the subsidies, while the influential sugar industry would retain its lucrative price supports. The one major "reform" was that farm families earning at least $2 million a year would supposedly be ineligible for subsidies, assuming none of them knew decent accountants...
EVEN BEFORE THE Agriculture Committee began work on the farm bill, chairman Peterson took Pelosi to meet with farm groups and warned her that Democratic freshmen in rural districts might lose seats if farm programs were revamped. Reformers countered with polls showing support for strict payment limits in those districts, and an analysis showing that most of those districts would receive more money under Kind-Flake through conservation payments. But as a Pelosi aide told them, it didn't matter whether the danger was real; it only mattered that freshmen Democrats believed it. The aggies flew in hundreds of farmers...
...Pelosi ultimately pledged to support the work of the Agriculture Committee, whose members represent districts that receive 42% of the subsidies. "That was 'game over' right there," Kind says. "That committee is completely beholden to the status quo." The committee passed its bill without a dissenting vote...
...instead of cutting farm spending--which accounted for less than nutrition spending--Peterson persuaded Pelosi to pry money out of the Ways and Means Committee by closing a loophole that helps foreign firms duck U.S. tax liabilities. Republicans denounced this back-door tax hike to no avail. "They had every right to scream foul," Kind says. "There was no vetting in Ways and Means, no hearings, no markup. My party just grabbed $10 billion to buy off the opposition." Democratic leaders then squelched an amendment that would have forced an up-or-down vote on eliminating subsidies for farmers earning...