Agency Runs Out of Funds, Halts Checks to Farmers

WASHINGTON —  The Commodity Credit Corp., the Agriculture Department agency that finances crop loans and farm subsidies, ran out of money Wednesday, halting the flow of government checks to thousands of farmers.

The shutoff meant a halt to payments for the government’s subsidized dairy herd slaughter program, advances on income subsidies for major crops, storage payments and loans for winter wheat now being harvested in the South.

Ted Langlois, a fiscal officer with the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, said money for those programs had been flowing at a rate of about $100 million a day before the shutoff.

The shutoff was just another of the corporation’s recurrent fiscal crises, which result when Congress fails to replenish its coffers in time to keep the fund solvent.

The CCC is the financial pool for all major farm programs, including crop loans. From time to time it runs out of money and must be replenished through congressional appropriations.

An “urgent” supplemental spending bill that includes $5.3 billion for the CCC is awaiting action on the Senate calendar, but congressional leaders have said it will not be in line for action until after the lawmakers complete debate on major tax legislation.

Senate leaders agreed late Wednesday that they would temporarily put the tax bill aside to complete action on the money bill today and Friday.

Even then, differences between the Senate version of the catchall spending bill and the one already passed by the House must be worked out, and it must be signed by President Reagan. The House version contains no money for the CCC.

“It might not be so difficult if it doesn’t last too long” because this is not the CCC’s heaviest demand season, said Ray Waggoner, a spokesman for the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. “But I just think of it as though I were a farmer waiting for a check. Some people need checks to make payments for many different things. Farmers owe a lot of money. The more days it is, the more it hurts an individual farmer.”