Republicans Choose Political Messaging and Extreme Policies At Expense of Nation’s Families and Economy This week, House Republicans failed to pass a farm bill providing certainty to America’s farmers after they added harmful partisan amendments to the original bill that would make drastic cuts to critical nutrition programs. This Republican farm bill would have cut $20.5 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, of which half of its beneficiaries are children. In addition, their bill did not contain sufficient commodity and crop insurance reforms, and failed to provide funding for renewable energy, which is an important source of jobs and economic growth in rural communities across the country. With the inclusion of partisan provisions and amendments, Republicans ended a long history of bipartisan support for the farm bill and failed to secure the votes needed for final passage from their own members. I hope that we can take action soon so that we can provide the essential support our nation’s nutrition programs, farmers and agricultural communities need. We also need to reach a bipartisan compromise to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling on July 1. This week I signed a discharge petition to bring forward legislation by Congressman Joe Courtney [...]
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