An Urban's Rural View

It's here, finally. The House-Senate conference on the farm bill gets underway Oct. 30. Now we'll learn whether the difference between the two chambers is a matter of money or a matter of principle.

If it's money, compromise is a negotiation away. For most of the farm bill's provisions the monetary differences between the House and the Senate are small, as my colleague Chris Clayton has pointed out in fascinating detail (http://tiny.cc/…).

For the nutrition title the gap is larger: a food-stamp cut of $3.9 billion over 10 years in the Senate's bill versus $40 billion in the House's. But if money is what's at stake, compromise is still possible. Give, take and find a place to split the difference.

If it's a matter of principle, compromise could prove elusive. No one wants to compromise his or her principles. When principle is on the line, compromise is capitulation, a shameful thing. In matters of principle the only acceptable compromise is for the other side to concede.

It isn't encouraging that lawmakers on both sides talk as if they were taking a stand on holy ground. For some Republicans, food-stamp work requirements are the only thing that can save the republic from turning into a decadent, European-style welfare state. For some Democrats, cuts in food-stamp benefits are heartless and immoral, an indelible stain on our humanity as a society.

Of course, this kind of extreme talk could be a mere negotiating posture on one or both sides. As John Maynard Keynes said, "When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position."

But don't be too quick to assume posturing. The food-stamp negotiation could easily fall into the trap that ensnares so many discussions in Washington these days. Again and again a faction of the Republican Party threatens death to any Republican who compromises on anything, while some Democrats insist they have to start drawing the line somewhere on something.

There are non-budgetary issues in the farm bill that are matters of principle to some Congressmen, like requiring conservation compliance for crop-insurance premium subsidies or abandoning "permanent law." For most legislators, though, these are as tradeable as horses.

With the farm-bill conference under way, we'll find out soon enough whether the food-stamp issues are tradeable at all.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

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