President Obama signed the 2014 Farm Bill into law today in East Lansing, Michigan. The president told the crowd gathered for the event that the long overdue bill doesn’t just help farmers.
“Secretary Vilsack calls it a jobs bill, an innovation bill, an infrastructure bill, a research bill, a conservation bill,” Obama said. “It’s like a Swiss Army knife.”
The legislation strips out controversial direct payment subsidies to farmers and bulks up subsidized crop insurance.
“It saves taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars by making sure that we only support farmers when disaster strikes or prices drops,” Obama said. “It’s not just automatic.”
A dispute about how big the budget for food stamps should be was the main sticking point in congressional negotiations over the past two years. In the end, the bill cuts out $8 billion from the food stamp program — the equivalent of a one percent cut.