By James Wright, Special to the AFRO, jwright@afro.com

In a major, yet quiet, victory, the Congressional Black Caucus helped defeat one of the Republican Party’s signature pieces of legislation largely on the basis that the bill will hurt low and middle-income Americans.

On May 18, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 213-198 to defeat a Republican version of “The Agriculture and Nutrition Act” popularly known as “The Farm Bill.” U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) is the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee that considered the bill before it went to the House floor. He thought it was a bad bill because it cuts the food stamp program (SNAP) severely.

U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) helped defeat the Farm Bill because it cuts the food stamp program (SNAP) severely. (Courtesy photo)

“This farm bill is mean, hurtful, deceitful, un-American and filled with racial vicissitudes,” Scott said when the bill was voted by the committee to go to the floor on April 16. “This bill takes 1.6 million needy families off of the SNAP program. Why?

“A work program that you manifest and walk around and say able-bodied men or able-bodied people should work and not be on food stamps. You know what you are really saying with that? The image of able-bodied men not working is the image of African-American men not working in the minds of people out there who have this mental disposition.”

The representative warned his Republican colleagues that if the bill becomes law, Blacks won’t be hurt the most. “Thirty-six percent of all SNAP recipients are White families, who desperately need that and whom I represent as well,” Scott said. “Only 16 percent of the food stamp recipients are in rural areas and only 11 percent in urban.”

Scott also lambasted his Republican colleagues for hurting historically Black colleges and universities that receive funding from the bill. “And that is why I am also disturbed that when you take the African-American colleges, put a four-year scholarship program there and snatch away the funding from the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), how can you have four-year scholarships and you don’t have the money there,” he said.

The Farm Bill is the primary agriculture and food policy tool of the federal government. It is renewed every five years and deals with programs under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The $867 billion bill funds nutrition programs, agricultural extensions at Black colleges and universities that are 1890 land grant institutions such as the University of the District of Columbia, and research on a variety of foods, plants, and animals. The latest bill is 687 pages online and deals with funding amounts for programs in foreign trade, credit for farmers and farm businesses, forestry and commodities.

The latest Farm Bill calls for work requirements in order to receive SNAP and that has outraged many CBC members, along with Scott.

CBC Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond backed up Scott in a letter to U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling the Farm Bill “disgraceful.”

“These work requirements create new red tape for states and for low-income families that very easily could result in an increase in food-secure families as a result,” Richmond said.”

The only CBC member to support the Farm Bill was Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah).

In a statement, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said he will re-visit the failed Farm Bill and try to listen to critics of the bill.