Mark Pryor: “That is exactly right. Had we not had those food inspectors, it literally could have shut down the poultry plants--but…”

“That is exactly right. Had we not had those food inspectors, it literally could have shut down the poultry plants--but also the beef and pork and other types of facilities--overnight. It could have shut them down and been very disruptive. One of the great things about agriculture in the United States is we have created a lot of efficiencies in the agriculture economy. So when you have something disruptive such as this, these inspectors can't inspect the meat and they just cannot operate, you start to cause all kinds of disruptions, all kinds of inefficiencies. Then what happens is the price of that chicken fillet at the grocery store goes up. When we go to a restaurant it goes up. We do not need to jeopardize our food supply, either on food safety grounds or on supply grounds, because we have--if we look at the United States and what we spend as a per-capita share of our income, we spend less on food than any country in the world. It is in relative terms. We have to use that per capita, because if we have a higher standard of living here, and we do, but it is something we are very fortunate about and because of this legislation and because of what Senator Stabenow is doing with the farm bill--it is all a team effort--we are going to keep that advantage and keep that food and fiber cheap. Those are all domestic jobs. That is very important. This is growth here, raised here, processed here, and served here. It is great for domestic jobs. It has a huge ripple effect on the U.S.…”