Congress Just Passed a Farm Bill That Legalizes Industrial Hemp. Other Than That, It's a Disaster.

[EasyAce]

The House Freedom Caucus calls it "a sprawling, cronyist agriculture bill."
By Eric Boehm
http://reason.com/blog/2018/12/12/congress-just-passed-a-farm-bill-2018

The House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly in support of a conference committee version of the 2018 farm bill.

Combined with a similarly bipartisan vote in the Senate on Tuesday, that means the bill has cleared Congress and now heads to the desk of President Donald Trump. He is expected to sign it later this week.

The final House vote—by a count of 369-47—to approve the $867 billion legislation easily overcame opposition to the bill from the House Freedom Caucus, a collection of fiscally conservative lawmakers that's probably the closest thing Congress has to a libertarian voting bloc. In a

statement issued earlier Wednesday, the House Freedom Cause decried the farm bill for combining "a sprawling, cronyist agriculture bill with continued funding for welfare that belongs at the state or local level."

Many of the headlines about the farm bill have focused on the inclusion of a provision that will legalize industrial hemp—a form of cannabis that contains very low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) found in marijuana. Industrial hemp has a wide range of uses that includes making clothing, as a substitute for plastics, and as a additive to food and drinks.

As Reason's Mike Riggs put it yesterday in this space, "we should commend Congress for taking the bold step of legalizing a plant that cannot get you high but can be turned into really cool necklaces" . . .

But, as Riggs also noted, we should condemn Congress for passing a farm bill that somehow manages to suck even more than most farm bills . . . (P)robably the most appalling part of the farm bill is the widening of an agricultural subsidy program that's already been widely criticized for sending benefits to people who, by most measures, would not count as farmers. Congress rejected a proposal to limit those subsidies to individuals who live or work on a farm, and instead expanded eligibility to include farmer's cousins, nieces, and nephews . . .

. . . The bill is also another missed opportunity to deal with America's unsustainable levels of spending and government debt . . . But, hey, at least they finally legalized something that never should have been illegal in the first place.

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