Senator Introduces Farm Bill Amendments
Oklahoma Senator, Tom Coburn, has introduced two amendments to the Farm Bill that would directly affect agriculture. Both are focused on lowering federal expenditures. Coburn’s first amendment would reduce the level of federal premium support for crop insurance participants with an Adjusted Gross Income over 750-thousand dollars by 15 percentage points for all buy-up policies beyond catastrophic coverage. The second amendment would prohibit federal tax cheats from receiving federal farm subsidies.
The Environmental Working Group supports Coburn's amendments. Craig Cox, senior vice president of agriculture and natural resources says – the federal government cannot justify providing extraordinarily costly subsidies to the most profitable and financially secure farm businesses that can easily afford to share more of the cost of their crop insurance.
