Jim Costa: “I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding, because we ought to be about doing the people's business. Walking away…”

“I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding, because we ought to be about doing the people's business. Walking away as we are for the next 46 days to focus on elections when we ought to be focusing on the people's business is a very sad commentary, a very sad commentary to the people of our land. I appreciate all the good work that my colleague Congressman Hoyer and my other colleagues do in trying to address the critical challenges that we face in our Nation today. As was stated, our House Republican colleagues have left town to focus on the election. In the meantime we have unfinished business. We have unfinished business on comprehensive jobs, big and balanced budget solutions to the deficit, tax cuts for the middle class, the farm bill--which I want to speak to--and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, as a cochair of the Victims' Rights Caucus, is especially disheartening. Let me say that the folks who farm and put the food on America's dinner table are wondering why, just why, we can't get a farm bill. It is one of the most bipartisan things we ever do here in Congress. In 2008 we had a bipartisan farm bill when we had the majority. President Bush vetoed it, we overrode his veto twice. Today we have a farm bill that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate by a vote of 64-35. It made cuts because we have to make cuts, and we have to be fiscally responsible, $23.5 billion less than the farm bill of 2008.…”