Chuck Grassley: “the issue before us is one of the utmost importance, the farm bill. We have to debate this now because, as everybody…”

“the issue before us is one of the utmost importance, the farm bill. We have to debate this now because, as everybody knows, the commodity provisions of the new farm bill were part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. That Budget Act was vetoed by the President. The farm bill provisions went down with that. We did not have the votes to overturn the President's veto on the Balanced Budget Act. Consequently, the farmers of America do not know for the first time in 5 years, since we passed the 1990 farm bill, what the Government policy is toward agriculture. This is necessary information that must be factored in to a lot of business decisions that are made by farmers. The legislation that is before us will guarantee an investment of $6 billion in rural America this crop year, an investment in rural America at a time when there is a tremendous transition from the agriculture of the last half of the 20th century to the more free market, international-trade-oriented agriculture of the 21st century. When this transition is going on, this is when we need to bring some certainty to the business decisions of agriculture as best we can.”