Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to introduce a piece of legislation that I have introduced many times in past Congresses. I have made some progress on the goals I seek but have not gotten 100 percent finality of the policies I want. I am always able to do this with a bipartisan piece of legislation. Today, I present this with Senator Johnson of South Dakota. I will let Senator Johnson speak for himself, but I want to give the reasons I am introducing this bill in my remarks. First, I want people to know this deals with farm policy, and on farm policy the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, and I agree on most everything. Mr. President, this is a piece of legislation that is probably going to come up not so much as a stand-alone, as when we discuss the reauthorization of the farm bill--which generally could start this year and probably go into next year--but as an effort that I am not going to give up on. It deals with the issue of how much one individual farmer should get from the farm program. My approach is to put what one might call a hard cap on the amount of money that one farmer can get, and my remarks will explain why. Also, though, at a time when we have great budget deficits, people might think I am introducing this bill just because I am concerned about the budget deficit. It is true this bill, if enacted, will save about $1.5 billion, but that is not my main purpose for doing it.…”