Political Quotes

“my colleagues, I rise today to introduce a bill that has a long title: Improve Nutrition Program Integrity and Deficit Reduction Act of 2013. Big title, but it is a good bill. Last June, I stood in this body, along with Chairperson Stabenow of the Agriculture Committee, to encourage my colleagues to pass bipartisan reform legislation known as the farm bill. The legislation we put together in the Senate Agriculture Committee would have strengthened and preserved the safety net for our farmers and ranchers while also being responsible to taxpayers by providing billions of dollars for deficit reduction. At the time we were told by the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, that the farm bill passed by the Agriculture Committee, one of the first bills, by the way, that we were able to pass under regular order and in record amount of time, 2\1/2\ days--the CBO estimated at that time the farm bill that was passed by the Agriculture Committee in the Senate would save $24 billion over 10 years, including $4 billion from the nutrition title. However, according to the latest CBO projections, a projection that has reverberated in farm country, released just last Friday, the farm bill we passed last year would now only save $13 billion and no longer represents savings in the nutrition title. We could have done more last year, and we must do more this year to rein in the largest expenditure within the Department of Agriculture budget. No, it does not go to farmers.…”