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Congress should waste no more time, says Vilsack

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says Congress should waste no further time getting a farm bill done, now that lawmakers are back from their August recess.

In an interview with Brownfield, Vilsack said, “the reality is, Congress is spending time on some things that don’t have the possibility of becoming law. The $40 Billion cut to the SNAP (nutrition) program, everyone knows that’s not going to happen. So why waste time on that? Why not focus on getting what CAN be done, done.”

Vilsack says there’s no reason why the House of Representatives couldn’t have appointed its conferees in the month of August.

“Which would have eliminated a lot of the work that could be done now, that could have been done by now – There’s a lot of agreement, a lot of areas that could easily be worked out between these two bills.”

Vilsack is referring to the Senate-passed farm bill and the farm policy-only bill passed by the House. The House reportedly is working on a companion proposal that would contain $40 Billion in nutrition program cuts.