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Home > Window on Washington > Archives > 2008 > May > 08 > Entry

New farm bill far from Bush’s demands

By Gerry Shih | Thursday, May 8, 2008, 11:56 AM

Details of a new farm bill worked out by House-Senate conferees — still undisclosed but confirmed by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., — sharply decrease income limits for direct-payment subsidies.

Farmers with outside adjusted gross income over $500,000 for singles and $1 million for married couples will be ineligible for direct payments, which are received regardless of commodity prices. The income limit for those who farm exclusively will be $750,000 for singles and $1.5 million for couples.

President Bush had repeatedly urged Congress set an income cap of $200,000.

“We’ve made huge, huge changes and reforms in the payment limit provision and the president does recognize that,” Chambliss said this morning.

Emerging from weeks of intense negotiations over a new farm bill, House and Senate conferees are keeping quiet about the final details until a public announcement set for at 2 p.m. EDT.

TThe income limits are based on complex calculations that take into consideration tax-deductible income averaged over the past three years.

he 2008 limits have considerably dropped from those set in the 2002 farm bill, which allowed farmers earning as much as $2.5 million a year to collect federal subsidies regardless of crop prices.

In reality, few farmers will be affected by the reform. The IRS says only 0.4 percent of all Americans have an adjusted gross income of between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans claim farming as an occupation.

The limit of the actual direct payments will remain fixed at $40,000 per single farmer and $80,000 for couples, after earlier proposals made by lawmakers to increase the limits to $50,000 and $100,000 were defeated this week in meetings behind closed doors.

This afternoon, conferees will also announce income-limit changes in the conservation title. Single farmers earning more than $1 million, with less than two-thirds total income from farming, will not receive subsidies from conservation initiatives. The income limit is double for couples, and there is no limit in conservation subsidies for full-time farmers.

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