Saxby Chambliss

I remind the gentleman that, as he well knows, in our budget resolution that we are going to vote on today there is no reduction in employees in the Farm Service Agency. We are not going to micromanage what the Agriculture Department does…

I would call to the gentleman's attention the fact that the President's budget called for an increase in veterans' benefits of $26 million. In the House-passed budget we provided for $1.1 billion of increase for veterans' health care…

I believe that this project in Macon and Bibb County, Georgia could serve as a model of interagency cooperation. As the gentleman is aware, Congress recently enacted legislation directing the Department of Transportation to develop and…

Currently the project in Macon is virtually at a standstill as a result of bureaucratic delays, incurring additional costs to the taxpayer because of governmental agencies' inability to complete the approval process. Mr. Chairman, will the…

I know the gentleman was a Member of this body back with events leading, where at the time events leading up to Desert Storm occurred. Can you tell us that President Bush did at that time as far as informing the Members of this body what…

I rise today to salute my dear friend, Bill Emerson. Bill Emerson represented honesty, decency and integrity in this body in a very bipartisan way. Through my many conversations with Bill Emerson, I learned to understand that Bill had his…

There should not be a price-fixing cap by the Federal Government on any product in this country. My friend from Texas made a classic point. I think he struck at the heart of this amendment. We have the highest prices for corn and wheat in…

I would like to ask our friend from Arizona, Mr. Kolbe, the sponsor of this amendment, the gentleman from North Carolina has just reiterated the fact that in our peanut title of the 1996 farm bill there was a reduction in the price from…

So we have set a maximum price on peanuts irrespective of the market oriented provisions of this bill, set a maximum of $640 a ton. Is that or is that not price fixing?

Let us move on to talk about domestic price. the amendment establishes the fact that no grower of peanuts anywhere in the United States, of quota peanuts, can achieve a price in excess of $640 per ton. No grower of additional peanuts can…

Does my colleague understand that under the buy-back provision that that 100,000-ton gap can be filled with additional peanuts by the Secretary?

This bill authorizes the use of binding production flexibility contracts between the United States and owners and operators of farmland to ensure farming certainty and flexibility while ensuring continued compliance with farm conservation…

I know you have the same deep regret that I do that we do not right now have a farm bill in place that we could have had tonight. We will continue to work over the next 3 weeks and hopefully on February 26 we will come back in the frame of…

The tax you are referring to, the Medicare tax that currently is in existence, goes into a trust fund. It is a fund that is set aside to solely pay for Medicare benefits and nothing else. That is why there is no relationship between tax…

If they like it or try it and do not like it, they can go back. You alluded to HMO's, health maintenance organizations as being in effect right now in your area. Is that another option that we are going to broaden under our plan?

Is that going to cost senior citizens any more money than what they are paying today?

As I understand it, what we are going to do, No. 1, we are going to offer every senior citizen the same Medicare program they have got right now. We have mentioned that a couple of times. That is an absolute. Secondly, we are going to…

Very briefly, you make an excellent point. The point being that the folks on the other side that are opposing this plan have stooped to an all time low level. I happened to be in the chair a little bit earlier in the evening when Jim…

And there were some reasons why that should happen. As the cold war with Russia has come to an end, it is time to downsize the military, to get it down to a more manageable figure and something that we can afford. That has been true over…

Spending has been out of control in Congress for too many years now. We have not had a balanced budget in 25 years. We run the largest business in the world right here in this Chamber. And if any member of the business community across the…

We have been taking the money that is received by the government from the taxpayers and deciding exactly how that money ought to be spent, which departments ought to receive what amount of money, what programs ought to be funded, and what…

Unfortunately, that is the shift which we made in this country over the last several years. We have gotten to where we have overregulated every segment of our society, and again, I heard the same thing you did. Folks are just so pleased…

I would just like to say in my hometown, Colquitt County, GA, the DARE Program has been extremely important in our educational system. The program has been in effect for the last 4 or 5 years, during which period of time we have had…

Absolutely. I will tell you about one other interesting fact that occurred to me shortly after I got here, and it was somewhat of a surprise. I was somewhat idealistic when I came here. I thought coming in with 72 other freshmen…

Isn't that what November 8 was all about? Didn't the American people tell us on November 8 that we want you doing a better job of spending our tax money? Make cuts where cuts are necessary; where cuts aren't necessary, don't make the cuts…