Tom Harkin: “I believe the Senator voted aye when the Balanced Budget Act passed the Senate--maybe not on the conference report but…”

“I believe the Senator voted aye when the Balanced Budget Act passed the Senate--maybe not on the conference report but when it passed the Senate. And that provision was in the Senate bill to extend it to 7 years. Secondly, the Senator from Texas may be philosophically opposed to food stamps. That is fine. That is his position--that may be his position. That is another debate for another time. We settled that in welfare reform, and we settled it in the Balanced Budget Act last year. All we are doing now is making food stamps compatible with Medicaid and SSI. So I hope the Senator would not hold our farmers hostage, because that is what is happening. We know full well, if this goes back to conference, it is dead. We have hundreds of thousands of farmers who need crop insurance this summer. Over 106,000 winter wheat policies right now will be up on September 30. Farmers all over the plains States will not be able to renew their policies. Many farmers use their crop insurance policies as collateral in order to secure an operating loan. So if we do not have that, thousands of farmers will not have access to the credit they need to get the crop in. That is why we need to pass this bill.”