#1 Farm Bill delayed by clerical error
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:53 am
Associated Press 
Democrats planning a farm bill redo Thursday
By MARY CLARE JALONICK – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are picking up the pieces after an embarrassing technical gaffe that delayed a triumphant rejection of President Bush's veto of a massive farm bill.
Members from both parties hoped to bring the $290 billion bill — which includes election-year subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor — back to their districts over Memorial Day. But that is looking less likely now that the legislation will have to be passed all over again due to a printing error.
The House on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly, 316-108, to override Bush's veto of the legislation earlier in the day.
The Senate had been expected to follow suit quickly, but action stalled after the discovery that a 34-page section of the legislation had been omitted from the printed bill sent to the White House. That means Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, raising questions that the eventual law would be unconstitutional.
The White House seized on the error.
"Maybe it gives them one more chance to take a look and think about how much they're asking the taxpayers to spend at a time of record farm income," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "I think what this clearly shows is that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely."
Democrats continued to operate in disarray Thursday as they tried to figure out how to solve the problem.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the two chambers "haven't totally worked out what we're going to do on the farm bill yet."
To avoid a partisan dustup, House Democrats said Wednesday night they would just pass the entire bill again and resend it to President Bush for a veto. But that plan appeared to be changing, as House Democrats said they will pass not only the entire bill again but also the dropped title, to give the Senate different options as to how to proceed.
Reid said the Senate would probably override the veto this afternoon, and may pass the section that was dropped separately.
"We have, under good legal precedent, going back to a case I understand in 1892 where something like this happened before, it is totally constitutional to do what we're planning to do," he said, without elaborating on the case.
Republicans continued to berate Democrats over the mistake.
"The House should not gloss over an incident of this magnitude," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said on the House floor. "It's a serious constitutional violation."
Lawmakers may also have to pass an extension of current farm law, which expires Friday.
Bush says the legislation is too expensive and would send too much government money to wealthy farmers. A bipartisan group of negotiators on the bill made small cuts to subsidies to appease the White House, but Bush said it wasn't enough.
The veto was the 10th of Bush's presidency, but Congress had overridden him only once before, on a water projects bill.
Congressional Republicans overwhelmingly abandoned Bush in voting to override the legislation Wednesday, overlooking its cost amid public concern about the weak economy and high gas and grocery prices. GOP lawmakers are anxious about their own prospects less than six months before Election Day.
About two-thirds of the bill would pay for nutrition programs such as food stamps, about $40 billion is for farm subsidies and another $30 billion would go to farmers to idle their land and for other environmental programs.
The farm bill also would:
_Boost nutrition programs by more than $10 billion over 10 years and expand a program to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren.
_Cut a per-gallon ethanol tax credit for refiners from 51 cents to 45 cents. The credit supports the blending of fuel with the corn-based additive. More money would go to cellulosic ethanol, made from plant matter.
_Require that meats and other fresh foods carry labels with their country of origin.
Dana Perino wrote:"I think what this clearly shows is that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely."
