Political Quotes

“To follow up on that point, one of the aspects of this farm bill which I think is actually so exciting is that there's a major reform in terms of how we're going to reduce, to some degree, the American taxpayers' liability for crop production in this country. We are definitely eliminating crop subsidies once and for all, direct cash payments to farms, in both the Senate bill and in the House Agriculture Committee bill. We are eliminating direct payment subsidies. That's where the largest portion of savings are actually being generated, the $23 billion in the Senate and the roughly $33 billion in the House bill. We are basically going to be using much more of a crop insurance, risk insurance model where the farmers have a little more skin in the game. The producer is going to have a little more skin in the game and the taxpayer is going to have a little less. From almost every angle, when you look at the hard work that's been put into the measure this year in terms of, again, lowering costs, trying to wean the system away from direct cash payments, doing some important, I think, exciting reforms in terms of promoting farmers' markets and marketing specialty crops--which, again, I'm sure Iowa is just like New England and California and other places where there has just been this renaissance of local agriculture.…”