Christopher Shays: “Mr. Chairman, the President of the United States said there are a lot of medium-sized farmers who need help, and one of…”

“Mr. Chairman, the President of the United States said there are a lot of medium-sized farmers who need help, and one of the things we are going to make sure of is that we restructure the farm program, so that the money goes to the people who need it the most. Mr. Chairman, on every occasion that Congress has taken up a farm bill or an agricultural appropriations act there is one argument that is as predictable as a football game on Thanksgiving: pass this bill, we are told, or it will mean the end of the family farm. Well, today, we have an opportunity to literally put our money where our mouths are. The Smith amendment is very simple. It establishes--actually, it enforces--a reasonable limit on the amount farmers can receive in deficiency payments. And if I may say so, a limit of $150,000 is not only reasonable, it is plain generous. Our current farm programs already include this cap, but the larger farms have exploited a loophole that allows them to bypass it through the use of commodity certificates. This amendment will not reduce government subsidies on a single small farm, unless of course a small farm is defined as 20,000 acres of cotton. What it will do is restore some sanity to the way we appropriate government price supports. Consider the following: the largest 18 percent of farms receive 74 percent of Federal payments.”