Huge government payouts to farmers. That's what happens if Congress doesn't reauthorize the farm bill by 2018. The bill, which legislates the nation's nutrition and agricultural program, is intended to be reauthorized every five years. Yet early looks at the White House's proposed budget already suggest that reauthorization for the bill is not going to be an easy, routine matter.
Trapped between a divided Congress and an executive branch loathe to institute or uphold governmental bureaucracy, a farm bill that isn't renewed would instead revert to the 1949 Farm Bill language, which was passed as "permanent legislation."
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