Rep. Rodney Davis
As he was in 2014 for the previous Farm Bill, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) has been chosen by U.S. House leadership to serve on the conference committee tasked with reconciling differences between the House-approved Farm Bill and the U.S. Senate’s version.
It’s not going to be an easy process, but the congressman is ready to serve his constituents in the Prairie State, the nation’s leading producer of soybeans, corn and swine and where farmland covers nearly 27 million acres – roughly 75 percent of the state’s total land area.
“I hope it’s a chance like four years ago to sit across from my Republican and Democratic colleagues in Congress and work out our differences. I’m optimistic we can,” the congressman told The Ripon Advance during a July 25 interview.
As a freshman on the House Agriculture Committee, Davis served on the conference committee for the 2014 Farm Bill and now chairs the Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research leading on provisions to strengthen agriculture research, provide regulatory relief for farmers, and protect crop insurance.
In listening “to producers back home about what we should and shouldn’t do,” Davis told The Ripon Advance that Illinois farmers want choices in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, H.R. 2, which will reauthorize the nation’s food programs through fiscal year 2023.
“And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” added Davis, who has served as the United States Representative for Illinois’s 13th congressional district since 2013, a 14-county district covering both urban and rural areas of central and southwestern Illinois.
The House-approved H.R. 2 Farm Bill is critical to farmers in his district, said Davis, noting that’s why the bill protects crop insurance, improves commodity protection programs, strengthens agriculture research, and increases protections for organic products.
In fact, Davis offered two amendments to protect the use of innovative crop insurance tools and strengthen protection for organic farm products. Both were adopted and are included in H.R. 2.
One amendment protects crop insurance by ensuring Illinois farmers would be able to continue using new crop insurance tools, such as Market Protection Plans. The congressman’s other amendment included in the bill would protect the role of the National Organic Standards Board in reviewing and establishing the national list of approved and prohibited substances for use in organic production and handling, in turn providing U.S. consumers with ongoing trust in the federal USDA Organic Seal.
Additionally, Davis said the House Farm Bill would make significant investments in workforce training for work-capable adults who want to receive federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps.
The majority of both bills’ costs come from the food assistance spending, although the Senate Farm Bill doesn’t include a proposed SNAP-related work requirement.
Davis is well aware that the House work requirement proposal is going to be the main issue of conference committee debate.
“But this isn’t only about helping work-capable adults purchase groceries,” he said. “The bill is about helping work-capable adults climb out of poverty.”
H.R. 2 would establish streamlined, simplified work requirements of 20 hours per week for work-capable adults ages 18 to 59 years. People who would be exempt from the provision include children, senior citizens, individuals with disabilities, caretakers of children under the age of 6, pregnant women, and 18-year-olds still enrolled in high school. And anyone who is currently eligible for SNAP would not be prevented from receiving SNAP benefits if they didn’t follow the proposed work training requirements.
The measure also would invest historic amounts in state employment and training programs, which the congressman said would help fill the 6.6 million jobs that are open because of our growing economy.
House passage of the bill in June not only shows support for agriculture, he said, but it shows that Americans aren’t satisfied with the status quo, which is a government welfare system that perpetuates poverty.
“Despite our growing economy, we have 9 million more people on food stamps today when unemployment is at 4 percent than when unemployment was at 9.5 or 10 percent” in 2009, Davis said. “Let’s invest in people and get them out of poverty.”
In Illinois, 67 percent of all work-capable adults receiving SNAP aren’t working, according to his office, not because they don’t want to work, but because many of them lack the proper training they need to qualify for today’s available jobs.
“As the old saying goes, ‘give someone a fish, feed them for a day, but teach someone to fish, you feed them for a lifetime,’” said Davis.
In a July 16 opinion piece published in the Washington Examiner that Rep. Davis co-authored with U.S. Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the lawmakers pointed out that the proposed work requirements in H.R. 2 could jumpstart the failed War on Poverty.
“After spending more than $20 trillion in the War on Poverty, America has yet to conquer this adversary,” the members wrote. “Maybe that’s because the solution is not to simply throw money at the symptoms of poverty without addressing the root causes of the problem.”
They also noted that while nominal work requirements existed in law, “the Obama administration allowed states to waive them over and over again” for programs like SNAP, resulting in a 50-percent increase in use of the program since 2008 despite the nation’s lower official poverty rate during the same period.
The House Farm Bill would close the Categorical Eligibility loophole that allows some Americans who shouldn’t even qualify for SNAP under the law’s requirements to receive benefits, according to their op-ed, which also acknowledged that welfare-to-work reforms aren’t a new idea.
“In the past, they’ve even passed with a divided government. In 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress and President Bill Clinton passed welfare-to-work reforms,” they wrote. “The changes in the House Farm Bill only seeks to strengthen what we know works from these previously bipartisan measures, and the final legislation should include these important improvements.”
Rep. Davis told The Ripon Advance that the House bill builds on the success of the previous Farm Bill and House members were able to retain many successful agriculture programs.
“In the end, the 2018 Farm Bill as a whole has saved $112 billion in mandatory spending,” he said. “The farm programs we’ve put in place have worked not only for farmers and producers, and families on SNAP, but for taxpayers to save money, too.”
The congressman is determined to put aside politics and pass an updated Farm Bill that continues to benefit American farmers, taxpayers and those trapped in poverty.
“It’s time to show the public we can govern,” said Rep. Davis.