An Urban's Rural View

Uncertainty envelops three of today's big Congressional debates: funding the government, raising the debt ceiling and passing a farm bill. The farm bill is, alas for farmers, by far the least important of the three, and therefore the most uncertain.

All three are shrouded in uncertainty in one sense: We don't know how Congress will resolve them. But with the first two there's an end point to the uncertainty.

We know that the government will eventually be funded, either with no spending on Obamcare (as some Congressional Republicans demand) or with Obamacare funding intact (as Democrats insist). The government may shut down for a while as lawmakers battle over Obamacare, but it won't shut down permanently. That's certain.

Similarly, we know the debt ceiling will ultimately be raised. It may be raised the Republican way (with Obamacare postponed a year and some other conditions) or the Democratic way (without conditions). One way or the other, though, Congress has no choice but to raise it, so raise it Congress will. That's certain.

The farm bill is different. Congress may enact it with food-stamp spending cuts of $40 billion over ten years (as the Republican-controlled House passed it) or with cuts of $4 billion (as in the Democratic-controlled Senate version) or somewhere in between.

Or it may punt. It's genuinely uncertain we'll get a farm bill at all. While it's unthinkable that the government will shut down forever or Uncle Sam will default for more than a short time, for most Americans life without a farm bill is thinkable.

Failure to pass a farm bill wouldn't throw the economy into a tailspin, as failure to fund the government would. It wouldn't cause chaos in financial markets, as would a default.

It would hurt some farmers and inconvenience many others, which many Congressmen would regret, but it wouldn't threaten many re-elections. While most Congressmen represent some farmers, few represent very many.

The reversion to 1949 law in the wake of a farm-bill failure would raise milk prices for consumers, but Congress could theoretically solve that problem without touching other farm bill issues.

As much as most of our elected representatives might prefer to see a farm bill passed, the two sides are so far apart on food stamps and so dug in to their positions that compromise might be unachievable.

Consider: A House-Senate conference bill that made only token cuts might well not pass the full House. Yet Democrats will feel little pressure to make larger ones because food-stamp spending would continue in the absence of a farm bill.

If the farm bill goes up in smoke it may even prove difficult to extend current law. The Senate's Democratic leaders are dead-set against an extension.

This is not to say a farm-bill disaster is inevitable, just that a farm-bill success is far from guaranteed. For those who depend on farm-subsidy programs, conservation programs, rural-development programs and nutrition programs the only certainty now is uncertainty.