Why are farm bills traditionally one of the most bipartisan pieces of legislation Congress considers? It is because, when crafted properly, a farm bill offers something that can appeal to any Member of Congress. It helps our farmers grow the crops that supply America and the world. It provides critical assistance to help America’s most vulnerable citizens feed themselves when hit by hard times. It also promotes America’s agricultural exports, conservation practices for healthy soil, research to enhance America’s agricultural production, and so much more.

For this farm bill, House Republicans are abandoning bipartisanship to follow the same partisan ideological strategy that led to the failures of farm bills on the House floor in 2014 and 2018. They continue to insist, as reiterated in Chairman Glenn "GT" Thompson’s recent op-ed, on draconian cuts to future SNAP benefits, cuts which I have repeatedly warned him jeopardize Democratic support for his farm bill. Sadly, my warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

To fund the farm bill, Republicans plan to extract around $30 billion in benefit cuts through changes to the Thrifty Food Plan — the formula used to determine SNAP benefits — and also prohibit the Agriculture Secretary from using any of his discretionary authority to use funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC).

These funds have been used to support farmers during hard times, including providing payments for livestock and crop production losses resulting from natural disasters, keeping farmers afloat during trade wars, and ensuring our agricultural system could weather a global pandemic.

Agriculture Committee Democrats want a bipartisan farm bill that invests in critical farm safety net programs without eliminating the Secretary’s ability to use the CCC when our farmers need it.

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House Agriculture Committee Democrats have pushed for bipartisan farm bill priorities like expanding access to crop insurance and enhancing the Title I commodities programs while at the same time sparing America’s most vulnerable low-income individuals from dangerous cuts to food assistance. Our concern for the sustainability of America’s farmers and food access for low-income households are not mutually exclusive. A bipartisan farm bill could succeed in a way that helps our farmers and the families they feed, but Republicans have refused that approach and continue to insist on their SNAP benefit cuts.

If the past 16 months have told us anything, it is that the current Congress is not going to pass anything that doesn’t have broad bipartisan support. House Republicans can’t even pass their own partisan agenda on the House Floor. If I thought the Republicans had the votes to send a partisan farm bill to the Senate on a party-line vote, I wouldn’t like it, but at least I could understand it. However, the Republicans have admitted privately and publicly that they need Democratic votes to get any kind of farm bill to the Senate.

Since joining the House Agriculture Committee 22 years ago, I have learned a thing or two about passing bipartisan farm bills. A truly bipartisan farm bill means both sides get what they need out of it. A truly bipartisan farm bill does not result from a majority placing greater importance on an ideological litmus test set by its most fringe Members than on seeking common ground with the minority.

With so little time remaining in this Congress, should the Agriculture Committee be spending time and effort on a partisan farm bill that has no future? Do we want to jeopardize our best chance to fix an outdated farm safety net over an ideological obsession with cutting SNAP benefits? Agriculture Democrats want a bipartisan farm bill because we believe America moves forward when both sides come together.

A truly bipartisan farm bill would invest in our agricultural producers and our rural communities without making America’s hungry even hungrier. House Republicans have a choice: they can walk back from the precipice and work with Democrats on a commonsense, compromise approach that achieves a bipartisan farm bill — or they can continue the politics of division, which has a proven record of failing to get anything done. American agriculture deserves more than promises. They deserve, no, they need results! We hope our Republican friends will join us in delivering them.

Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., is the ranking member of the House Committee on Agriculture.