Bill Clinton: “Well, before this last round of discussion on agriculture, I really believed that we had bottomed out in the shrinking…”

“Well, before this last round of discussion on agriculture, I really believed that we had bottomed out in the shrinking of the farm sector. That's what I believe. And I believe that because even though productivity will doubtless continue to improve in agriculture, we have been moving to a system where we could fairly compete around the world so that I thought that we would be able to essentially continue the structure of family farming that we now have. And it's dramatically lower, obviously, than it was a generation ago, and that was inevitable because of the increasing productivity of agriculture. It's true everywhere. There are not nearly as many people in farming anywhere as there used to be. But I really thought we had pretty much bottomed out. And I think, as you know, there are basically two purposes for all these farm programs, if you really look at it. One is to allow us to be competitive with people around the world. The other is to try to deal with the fact that farming has become more and more capital-intensive. And if you want family farmers to farm, you have to have some system which rides them through the tough times. Otherwise, the economics will turn all the farms over to big corporations who can finance their own tough times. I mean, if you basically think about it, that's--in a lot of our States where large corporate farms exist, they don't need the support programs because the good years overweigh the bad years and they don't have to worry about the bank loans. Now, one of the things that we have ignored in this whole system is that the barriers to entry have gotten higher and higher. So most of the young farmers that are in farming today are people that got their farms from their parents, because the barriers to entry are so high. And what I was hoping would happen is that, even though we might have to cut the support program some more, that we would have no backing off of agricultural research, no backing off of the development of alternative agricultural endeavors in this country like the ethanol program, and that we might be able to develop some sort of first-time farmer financing system that would help to lower the barriers to entry. Because I think we are in a position now just--if you project--if you look at world population growth, if you look at the fact that we are pretty much now committed to sustaining our own capacity to produce food in an environmentally responsible way, it is now--I think that it is more likely than not that for the next generation, anyway, we could keep the present structure of family farms, that you wouldn't have to see the continuing collapse if we could work the economics out on the barriers to entry. Now, if you have an excessive reduction in the farm support programs, one of two things or both will happen: You will either give up market share overseas, or you will create such difficulties from year to year for family farmers that there will be an increase in concentration in ownership. So again, I would say to you that the big picture looks better for you and for people like you coming forward, because I think that we are going to be able to maintain the present level of production and the present level of acreage for quite a long while now because of how we're positioned in the global economy and what's happened with population growth in other parts of the world. But I am very concerned that--again, I am all for cutting the deficit--the Republicans are now using 7-year numbers, the Congress is. Under those 7-year numbers, the budgets that we passed cut the deficit a trillion dollars over 7 years. I'm all for that. But I think we have to say, why are we doing that? Because we want to take the burden of debt off our chil- dren, because we want to get interest rates down, because we want to be freer of the flows of foreign money. In other words, we want to raise incomes and strengthen the economy. That means that the deficit reduction has to be pursued in the context of raising the incomes of the American people, growing the middle class, shrinking the under class, pursuing these goals in a consistent way. That's what I believe. So you know what I'd do. What I'd do is have a more moderate agricultural cut. And what I would try to do is to preserve the things that support family farms, diversify farm income, diversify production of different products in America, and try to get some way to ease the barrier of entry to first-time farmers. That's what I would do if I could design this program for the next 5 years all by myself. Senator Baucus. Mr. President, I think we have time for one more question before we go have dinner here pretty quickly.”