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Farm aid plumps up Iraq funding

Democrats insert $3.7B that's unrelated to war

WASHINGTON — Three months after promising to curtail spending on pet legislative projects, House Democrats have salted the Iraq emergency spending bill with $3.7 billion for farm interests that make significant donations to Democrats.

Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Georgia Democrat who refers to himself as "the peanut congressman," makes no apologies for helping to put $74 million into the spending bill to cover storage fees for peanut growers.

He says he would have backed the measure even if peanut interests hadn't contributed $35,750 to last year's race, according to a USA TODAY analysis of PoliticalMoneyLine's contribution database.

"That's what politics is: Who gets what, when and how," said Bishop, an Appropriations Committee member.

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the ranking GOP member on the committee, and other Republicans have charged that the provisions are tailored to attract support from moderate Democrats for language requiring troops to be out of Iraq by fall 2008.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the committee chairman, said the money is mostly for disaster relief, which had been left undone by Republicans.

"Every time there is a disaster on the farming front, the federal government provides assistance," Obey said. "This is no different than what's been done for the last 50 years."

The $124 billion bill — which will be debated today and scheduled for a vote Friday — also includes:

•$25 million for spinach growers to offset losses from last fall's E. coli contamination. The chief backer is Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., an Appropriations Committee member from the spinach-rich Salinas Valley. His last campaign received $30,600 from spinach interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

•$252 million for milk subsidies, inserted by Obey, who has raised $113,000 from dairy interests since 1989, including at least $9,000 last cycle, Center figures show. Obey said those donations played no role in his actions. "I represent dairy farmers. You got a problem with that?"

•$3.3 billion for crop and livestock losses owing to drought, flooding and other natural disasters. Crop and livestock farmers gave $6.6 million to Democrats in the last campaign cycle, according to the Center.

Bishop and Farr say they support the Iraq language regardless of the farm funding.

Last year, the Republican-controlled Congress added $4 billion in farm aid to a $97 billion emergency Iraq bill, but the Bush administration negotiated to cut the farm aid to $400 million.