The Farm Bill was blocked last week in the Senate by Democrats who said they were concerned about fraud measures in the SNAP program.
Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, was hoping to see it pass after it passed the House. “I’m frustrated and once again I will just say that I think that Democrats in D.C. have shown just how out of touch they are with rural America right now by blocking this from moving forward in the Senate. I have been out, again, traveling the state. Our farmers are struggling right now,” she says.
Hinson hopes the Farm Bill will get passed when the Senate returns from its fall recess. “I’m hopeful that it’s just a symptom of the political environment right now leading up to an election. And we’ve seen the same rhetoric around government funding,” Hinson says.
Hinson says the efforts to stop fraud in the SNAP program are important. “We want to eliminate fraud and make sure that taxpayer dollars are not going out unnecessarily so that these programs can exist long term, whether it’s SNAP or Medicaid or any other government program. So I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to get at some point, but it’s up to the Democrats to come to the table,” Hinson says.
Hinson is running for the U.S. Senate, and her Democrat opponent, Josh Turek, criticized Democrats for failing to pass the Farm Bill. Turek says a new permanent Farm Bill is long overdue.
