Bush's farm-bill veto threat has little weight

WASHINGTON — President Bush now will follow the lead of the Dwight Eisenhower by vetoing a comprehensive farm bill.

Bush, though, is no Eisenhower.

On Thursday, the Senate, by a comfortably veto-proof 81-15 margin, approved a farm bill that now faces a resistant White House. Bush said he'll veto the five-year package, much as Eisenhower nixed a big farm bill in April 1956.

Eisenhower won his showdown, the last time a president vetoed a major, stand-alone farm bill. Bush, on the other hand, will lose. The House and Senate now have approved the bill by more than the two-thirds vote needed to beat a veto.

"Mr. President, you and your people have been at the table for more than a year," Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Thursday. "It's time you recognize the value of this project."

Craig was one of 35 Republican senators to abandon Bush on Thursday and support the bill. On Wednesday, 91 GOP House members voted for the bill, defiantly boosting the House's approval to a veto-proof margin of 318-106.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republicans' presumptive presidential candidate, missed the vote but said he opposed the bill. Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois both support the bill, but they likewise missed the vote. Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, voted for the bill.

Officially called the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, the farm bill devotes nearly three-quarters of its funding to food stamps and other nutrition programs. It provides roughly $1.3 billion to the nation's fruit and vegetable growers for grants, research and help in opening foreign markets to the apples, cherries and other crops grown in Washington state and elsewhere, while largely sustaining traditional crop subsidies.

Bush wanted the bill to ban all subsidy payments to farmers with incomes exceeding $200,000. Instead, the bill bans one form of subsidy to farmers with agricultural incomes exceeding $750,000. For a married couple, the outside income limit will be $1.5 million.

Critics said the bill relies on gimmicks to camouflage its true costs. The bill's authors used one set of budget assumptions to put the five-year price tag at $289 billion, while the Congressional Budget Office states that from 2008 to 2012, "spending on the programs [the bill] covers would be about $307 billion."

The 673-page bill is replete with narrowly tailored provisions sought by lobbying groups, records show, including $93 million in tax breaks for horse breeders, $170 million in grants for the salmon industry and what Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia called a "backroom" deal that he said mainly benefits one Montana timber company.

Congress will send the legislation to Bush by next week.

Eisenhower's dismissal of the 1956 farm bill was one of 73 vetoes issued during his eight years. Congress quickly rewrote the bill to his satisfaction. Eisenhower had only two of his vetoes overturned by Congress.

Bush, has vetoed nine previous bills. Congress has overridden him once, on a $23 billion water-resources bill.

Material from The Associated Press and Seattle Times archives is included in this report.