Senator Kent Conrad, Who Hasn’t Passed A Budget Since 2009, Complains About Farm Bill Delays
Senator Kent Conrad is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. His committee is the leading edge of the Democrat-controlled Senate’s budgeting process. Senator Conrad’s committee hasn’t produced a budget since 2009, leaving the nation rudderless in terms of fiscal matters for three consecutive years.
Yet, here’s Senator Conrad griping in an editorial in the Grand Forks Herald about delays in the House passing a farm bill.
The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Of course, all this pressure to pass a farm bill is so much political theater. There’s not much in the farm bill that impacts the day-to-day operations of farmers. As NDSU farm management expert Dwight Aakre was quoted as saying recently that, “There is way too much made of the idea that farmers need to know what the farm bill is in order to plan for next year. That’s just not true.”
What the farm bill does contains is enormous amounts of spending on all sorts of entitlement programs, like food stamps, and special economic projects like broadband which are tucked in to buy off support for the bill from the various members of Congress. Put simply, the farm bill is a fiscally irresponsible bill.
Republicans aren’t holding off for a perfect bill, to be sure, but they are holding off for a more fiscally responsible bill. Which something you’d think a self-styled “budget hawk” like Kent Conrad would understand. Except that Conrad, as he always has, values partisan political games over sound fiscal policy.
Tags: farm bill, Kent Conrad, North Dakota News
