Tom Harkin: “I just want to take at least a couple of minutes--I guess I have the floor--to raise my voice in protest against this…”

“I just want to take at least a couple of minutes--I guess I have the floor--to raise my voice in protest against this process we are now undertaking. Agricultural legislation is serious business. It not only affects the farmers in my home State and farmers and ranchers all across the country, it affects consumers and affects people who live in small towns in rural areas. I have been here 22 years. I have been on the Ag Committee that long, 10 in the House and now 12 in the Senate. I have been through a lot of farm bills. I have never seen such an obscene process as what we are going through right now, and I use the word with its full import and meaning, 'obscene.' The fact that we have before us a 7-year farm bill--I do not mind debating the farm bill and offering amendments and whatever comes out of this body, fine. But, to be choked by a process that only allows several hours of debate, that only allows 10 amendments on this side, allows 5 amendments on that side; that only allows a half-hour evenly divided for any amendment--what kind of deliberative process is this? Is this the U.S. Senate? Or is this some Third World dictatorship, where somebody is trying to cram something through?”