Jack Kingston: “I oppose the bill; and the reason why, Mr. Speaker, is I think it is very important for our constituents to understand.…”

“I oppose the bill; and the reason why, Mr. Speaker, is I think it is very important for our constituents to understand. Yes, there was a mandate in November as there had been a growing mandate throughout the year to get rid of earmarks. Now when my constituents supported the President's call to get rid of $18 billion worth of earmarks, what they thought he meant was reducing spending $18 billion. They do not want earmarks eliminated for the sake of taking them out of the hands of elected people and putting them in the hands of non-elected bureaucrats, yet that is what this omnibus bill does. Now in the ag section, the total spending has gone from 100 to $150 billion down. That sounds like a good savings, some of it. You can argue, where did the savings come from? One thing that was eliminated, $70 million in environmental quality incentive program, $44 million for conservation security programs. These are programs that help farmers, and they have a cost share. It helps farmers plan on environmental repairs, keeping nutrients out of flowing into streams, safe environmental practices on dairies like building lagoons, things like that. The bill also eliminated $74 million in watershed and flood prevention, building small dams, and it eliminates $2 million from the USDA biomass program.”