Political Quotes

“earlier this afternoon, an hour or so ago on this floor, we adopted a new farm policy for our country. In Delaware, in Michigan, even in Connecticut and Kansas, farmers are struggling to try to make a go of it. Some of the woes that our agricultural communities face are laid at the foot of the agricultural policy which was adopted by the Congress, I believe, in 1996. I would just observe that some of the problems our farmers face may be fairly attributable to that national farm policy. But not all of the woes of agricultural communities can be traced back to the legislation adopted some 6 years ago. In my own view, the bigger problem is overproduction. In my own view, the bigger problem is we have too much commodity and not enough demand for that commodity, whether the commodity is corn or soybeans, the commodity is milk or rice or cotton or beef--even chicken. We have too much commodity and not enough demand, too much commodity produced in this country and around the world. The bill we have just passed provides subsidies to support those who are raising major crops, including corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. Those supports--loan prices--are important. But the answer to what ails our farms and our agricultural communities is not merely more subsidies or greater subsidies. The answer, I believe, ultimately is better alignment of supply and demand.”