Author Barry Piatt Nails It!
Iowa’s congressional delegation is hitting the campaign trail bragging about how much they’ve gotten done for Iowa. Ask them why we still don’t have a Farm Bill.
On Monday, October 7, 2024, exactly 373 days will have passed since the five-year Farm Bill, last updated in 2018, expired on September 30, 2023.
It has still not been updated, modernized, or renewed.
Now is a good time for Iowans to ask members of Iowa’s congressional delegation, as they campaign full-time across the state, bragging about all they have done for Iowa, why this vital work—legislation central to the state’s economy—still remains neglected and unfinished.
Three hundred seventy-two days is a long time to languish, waiting for something to happen.
This is not inconsequential legislation for Iowans. And Iowa is not a state that lacks members of the House or Senate positioned to help get this job done. So why haven’t they? You’ll have to ask them, which is actually a pretty good idea. It’s time they started feeling some heat over this failure, anyway.
Four Iowans serve on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. They have a special obligation to ensure that the Farm Bill moves through Congress expeditiously and on time.
That is their job. They failed miserably at it.
In the US House, Rep. Zack Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) serve on the House Agriculture Committee.
To read Zach Nunn’s press releases, in which he often absurdly portrays himself as stomping around the halls of Congress “demanding” this and “blasting” that you’d think he’d have ruined his vocal cords by now. He has astonishingly little to show for all that stomping, demanding, and blasting, though. There is little evidence that he has done much to push this long overdue Farm Bill across the finish line.
Rep. Randy Feenstra currently advertises himself in his re-election campaign with ads and signs proclaiming, “Feenstra Delivers!”
Iowa farmers, now in their second year of waiting for Congress to finish its long-lost Farm Bill, would be right to ask:
“Delivers what? Certainly not the Farm Bill.”
Iowa’s U.S. Senators, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee. There is scant evidence they’ve been doing much to nudge the Farm Bill to completion, either. Last May, Grassley even essentially told Iowans to forget about it, predicting Congress would not complete the Farm Bill this year.
Grassley and Ernst Don’t Nudge and Don’t Care
Grassley didn’t seem too bothered by that.
He merely explained that Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on what its provisions should be.
I guess his message for farmers is to just get over it and wait some more. Congress will get to it when they get to it. He certainly wasn’t offering any solutions to the deadlock.
Chuck Grassley is a US Senator, a member of the Senate Agriculture, and the longest-serving member of the United States Senate. Whenever he seeks re-election, he tells Iowans about how much “clout” he has in Washington.
Not on the Farm Bill, apparently, despite its importance to his home state.
Grassley’s job is not to be a play-by-play announcer, standing on the sidelines describing what is not happening.
His job is to roll up his sleeves, dive in, and help get the bill unstuck – and the job done – for his constituents. He hasn’t.
Ernst has also been pretty much invisible in getting a new Farm Bill across the finish line, certainly when it comes to throwing any elbows to get the long overdue bill finished. She’s running for a Republican leadership position in the Senate, so—sorry, Iowans—your needs now take a back seat to her need to win votes from fellow Republicans in the Senate for her leadership race.
It is apparently no time for her to be ruffling Republican feathers in the Senate, no matter how much trouble that might cause for Iowa farmers.
Meanwhile, Iowa farmers are trying to plan for yet another crop year without the benefit of knowing what the federal farm program will be in the coming year, or the next five years, for that matter. That is not an inconsequential detail for farmers. It is vital information they need.
Congress kicked the can down the road in 2023, simply extending the Farm Bill in its current form and promising to finish work on it promptly during the coming year, 2024—which, at this point, has become this past year.
Grassley’s job is not to be a play-by-play announcer, standing on the sidelines describing what is not happening.
His job is to roll up his sleeves, dive in, and help get the bill unstuck – and the job done – for his constituents. He hasn’t.
Ernst has also been pretty much invisible in getting a new Farm Bill across the finish line, certainly when it comes to throwing any elbows to get the long overdue bill finished. She’s running for a Republican leadership position in the Senate, so—sorry, Iowans—your needs now take a back seat to her need to win votes from fellow Republicans in the Senate for her leadership race.
It is apparently no time for her to be ruffling Republican feathers in the Senate, no matter how much trouble that might cause for Iowa farmers.
Meanwhile, Iowa farmers are trying to plan for yet another crop year without the benefit of knowing what the federal farm program will be in the coming year, or the next five years, for that matter. That is not an inconsequential detail for farmers. It is vital information they need.
Congress kicked the can down the road in 2023, simply extending the Farm Bill in its current form, and promising to finish work on it promptly during the coming year, 2024—which, at this point, has become this past year.
In other words, the dog ate their homework. Again—two years in a row now—in 2023 and again in 2024.
They’d like us to believe that their Farm Bill homework is late through no fault of their own. If we just give them an extension, they’ll eventually be able to hand it in.
The odds of that actually happening by December 31, in my view, are very slim.
If this continues through the rest of this year—to December 31—the total number of days that have elapsed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired will be 458 by December 31, 2024.
It’s also a safe bet that Congress won’t be enacting a new Farm Bill on January 1, or even in January or February. It took House Republicans nearly a solid month of bickering and infighting among themselves to elect a House Speaker at the beginning of this Congress, so — even at best, I think we’re looking at March 1, 2025, as a realistic earliest date for a new Farm Bill to be enacted, no matter what they are saying in Congress.
That brings the elapsed time to 517 days since the 2018 Farm Bill expired.
You’ll hear plenty in the next 30 days how Iowa’s all Republican congressional delegation “delivers” for Iowa.
Sure they do. Sure they do.
Just not for Iowans who farm, or who need to be able to plan their upcoming farming operations, or for Iowans who care about the farm economy, or for Iowans who recognize the critical importance of the Farm Bill being delivered on time.
Author Barry Piatt on Politics: – “Behind the Curtains” is a reader-supported publication. He provides unique political commentary and analysis that is rarely available elsewhere. To support his work, please go to https://piatt.substack.com/