On the recordJune 19, 2013
I appreciate your yielding also to me. I rise in opposition to the Kind amendment, and do I so because I don't want to see agriculture distorted. We've watched as equipment's gotten larger, farms have gotten larger. And when you start locking this thing down and tying it to an AGI, what you really have is a means test for the first time. It pits neighbors against neighbors. Here's what I remember. Back in the eighties, when we had a farm crisis and we had a real disaster, I saw on the front page of the paper, $26 billion in farm subsidy disaster money to deal with drought and the climate that we had and the bad economic climate. We haven't had those calls. 2011 we had a big flood. No calls for disaster money. 2012 we had a big drought. No calls for disaster money. Crop insurance is working. Eighty-six percent of the crop is insured today. I recall it being 13 percent back then when I saw the $26 billion bill hit the headlines in the Des Moines Register. So I urge opposition to the Kind amendment.





