Republican Allen Quist is calling on the House to pass the Farm Bill now.  
             
Quist, who lost to Democrat Tim Walz in the First District election earlier this month, told the Faribault Daily News, lack of a farm bill will be more than a fiscal cliff...it's a fiscal abyss.
             
Quist said the last Farm Bill had a price tag of $286 billion and that the current proposed Farm Bill, passed earlier by the Senate, is almost twice that at one-half trillion dollars.  Quist says the increase is entirely for food stamps and none of it is for farm programs.
              
He calls the current Farm Bill proposal a food stamp bill with a farm rider because 80% of the funds, he says, are earmarked for the food stamp program.