Political Quotes

“I commend our House colleagues for continuing the tradition of bipartisan work on the farm bill, for soliciting broad input, for finishing the bill early this year, for not pitting farmers against farmers and one region against another, processors against farmers and environmentalists against farmers. In my view, the House did succeed in avoiding the temptation to politicize farm policy, and I believe the product they have reached in conference with the Senate is good for all agriculture. The staff worked long days, nights and weekends, as did, of course, the conferees. It is not very often that we do anything around here ahead of time. For that, the conferees deserve special recognition. Clearly, there are many provisions in the bill that I support. There are some issues on which each of us would have a much different take, we would have handled differently, if not burdened by the natural constraints of a democracy. I know that some Senators are making a strongly held case that this legislation costs too much. I have my own misgivings about the price of farm policy.”