Club for Growth warns members against farm bill discharge petition

The conservative pressure group Club for Growth on Monday said it will key-vote support for the farm bill discharge petition currently available for signatures in the House.

Some Republicans have joined the effort to force House GOP leaders to hold a vote on the House Agriculture Committee's five-year farm bill.

As of Friday, 53 members had signed the petition, which needs a majority of 218 to succeed.

A House member’s signature on this discharge petition, or any similar petition, will count heavily as an anti-growth action on the Club for Growth’s 2012 Congressional Scorecard.

Club for Growth argues that the bill "authorizes a whopping 60 percent increase in spending over the 2008 bill, it creates new entitlement programs that could prove extra costly to taxpayers, and it does nothing to reform the food stamp program."

The House farm bill does cut $16 billion from food stamps — enough to anger House Democrats — but falls short of the House-passed 2013 budget that would block-grant the entire program to the states to get $130 billion in savings. 

Pressure on members was already apparent last week. On Friday, Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) withdrew their support for the discharge petition, which was submitted by Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa).

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