Reuters: Politics: Food stamps, crop subsidies among Senate farm bill amendments

Reuters: Politics Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Food stamps, crop subsidies among Senate farm bill amendments Jun 19th 2012, 04:53 WASHINGTON | Tue Jun 19, 2012 12:14am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Proposals to avert bigger cuts in food stamps and reduce certain crop subsidies are among more than 70 amendments the U.S. Senate will consider this week to a massive farm bill. Senate leaders struck a bipartisan deal late on Monday to clear the way for debate and votes on the stalled legislation beginning on Tuesday, a Democratic aide said. The U.S. farm law covers everything from food stamps to crop subsidies to soil erosion - and several other hot-button issues in an election year. Negotiators in the Democratic-led Senate whittled the number of amendments in the 10-year bill from roughly 300 to 73. A number of amendments are meant to put lawmakers on the record on hot-button spending issues in an election year. They include debt reduction, funding for food stamps, support for subsidies and pushing spending back to 2008 levels. One unrelated, politically charged proposal by Republican Marco Rubio of Florida would allow businesses to give merit-based raises and bonuses to union workers without first getting the consent of labor leaders. Democrats assert Republicans are waging war on unions, while supporters of Rubio's proposal and others like it say some unions are too powerful and have, in certain cases, infringed on the rights of business. Analysts say the odds are slim Congress will enact a new farm law before the current one expires on September 30. Election-year and budget-cutting pressures have slowed action. The Senate bill as written would cut $4 billion from the food stamp program but Republicans want larger reductions. The Senate also would cut crop subsidies by $13 billion over 10 years and environmental conservation by $6 billion. (Reporting by John Crawley and Charles Abbott; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions