Saturday, June 16, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., deserves credit for standing up for taxpayers and trying to improve the farm bill that recently failed in the House of Representatives. She demonstrated leadership by attempting to establish transparency and accountability requirements for checkoff programs that charge farmers for advertising campaigns. Her amendment and no vote on the wasteful final bill demonstrate that Titus will stand with taxpayers.
Prior to 2014, a farm bill had never failed to pass the House floor. Now it’s happened twice in five years. Business-as-usual farm bills are no longer an option.
It’s time all corners of the agriculture sector are heard, rather than simply those with the best lobbyists. Proposed improvements to the bill must be won or lost on merit instead of being scuttled by leadership behind closed doors and without a vote.
Congress should take this opportunity to write and actually debate a bill that is cost-effective, transparent, responsive to need and, most important, accountable to taxpayers.
The writer is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a federal budget watchdog organization.
