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House removal of speaker creates additional challenges for a new farm bill
It remains unclear who will become the next Speaker of the U.S. House, but Kam Quarles CEO of the National Potato Council says it needs to happen quickly.
He says the House needs to get back to work. “With a government shutdown, the farm bill, all of these things, the pain is going to be magnified the longer we put this stuff off and the longer this drama is able to overhang this pretty vital institution,” he says
Quarles tells Brownfield this week’s actions send a very clear message, “That working across the aisle is grounds for removal.” He says that could be a challenge for big spending bills that still need to be tackled, like funding the government and the 2023 Farm Bill. “Those are going to be pieces of legislation that a new Speaker has got to think long and hard about if they want to get them across the House floor and still keep their job,” he says. “I think everybody’s grappling with how to thread that needle. It’s a very chaotic time.”
Quarles says he’s still optimistic a farm bill can happen soon, and the last thing agriculture and rural America needs is for Congress to get in a cycle of extensions. “And we’re sitting here 10 years from now talking about tools that were created in the 2018 Farm Bill to serve an agriculture industry in 2033 that is simply vastly different than the one that our agricultural policy was designed for,” he says. “That is a mess.”
And until the U.S. House selects a new Speaker, it is at a stalemate.
Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is the House speaker pro tem until a replacement for McCarthy wins a majority of members’ votes.
AUDIO: Kam Quarles, National Potato Council
I take issue with the notion that McCarthy was fired because he was reaching across the isle. He was fired vecause he was doible dealing US legislation by trying to send more money to Ukraine. If the money already sent to Ukraine was better spent domestically instead of being laundered through Ukraine and used to start WW3, then there would be no problem. However, McCarthy, lier that he is, failed to deliver on the promises he made when he finally won speakership after 15 rounds of voting. Moral of the story is never trust any politician from California as they all lie and do not care about our Republic. Furthermore, Tepublicans do care about farming in America, but wonder why it is not profitable without all the pork givernment spebding, no pun intended. The only thing democrats are interested in us WAR, so if you can figure out a way to use potatoes as a weapon of war, then you will get all the democrats to support your farm bill. School lunch programs should be able to buy US produce without making the farm bill pay for school lunches. That would be a free market, not the kind of socialism that you have become used to. Nake farming in America peofitable and let the DOE pay for their supplies, lunch orograms, ettc. Oh, and let Ukraine worry sbot Ukraine,