Tom Harkin

I want to try to clear it up, if I can, and say to my colleague from Kentucky that we do not reopen the tobacco program.

The reason it is is because if we put an assessment, I say to the Senator from Kentucky--if we put an assessment on the tobacco companies to pay into this, that assessment they can deduct from their taxes. They deduct it from their taxes…

What it is about is whether this Senate wants to effectively fund an ongoing program to enforce the rules that keep kids from illegally buying cigarettes. That is all it is. We voted on this last September. Seventy Senators voted for…

The 1996 farm bill is not the Ten Commandments. It was not written in stone for all time. We have a crisis impending on us in agriculture. The bottom is falling out. Prices are going down every day. Are we so stuck in our ways here, are we…

So we hear the old refrain, get the Government out of agriculture; give the farmers more freedom. That is what this amendment does. If that is what you like, this amendment gives the farmers more freedom. I just ask my colleagues, what…

World grain reserves right now, as a percentage of consumption, are at historically low levels. I believe the American people would be appalled to learn that our Government holds virtually no food in reserve to help us out if we ever have…

I want to inquire of the chairman--obviously it is well within his right to move to table--why can't we have an up-or-down vote?

Farmers are price takers. In other words, a farmer has a lot of fixed costs over which that farmer has no control--land, seed, fertilizer, chemicals. The farmer who goes down to get his seed can't say, well, my prices went down last year…

We can close our eyes to it. We can try to ignore what is going on, but the fact is, there is a crisis of immense proportions happening all over rural America. In our sense-of-the-Senate resolution, we pointed out that net farm income for…

I thank my friend, because we hear a lot about that: ``Wouldn't it be better to have a few large farmers out there rather than all these family farmers?'' There are a lot of ways to answer that question. First, a strong, healthy rural…

first I thank our leader, Senator Daschle, for really taking the bit here and moving ahead aggressively to answer a real concern and a real need that we have in rural America. Well, I would go beyond that--a crisis in rural America…

I said a couple of years ago, when that so-called Freedom to Farm bill passed, it was a triumph of ideology over experience--the experience of thousands of years; the experience we have had in our own country since the 1930s. Yet there was…

my amendment cuts the tax on subsidized student loans by 25 percent--from 4 percent to 3 percent. So it puts more actual money into the pockets of students so they can buy textbooks. It also continues to pay guaranty agencies over the next…

the amendment I just sent to the desk really can be called the Tax Reduction for College Students Amendment, because that is exactly what it is. So all Senators who are interested in cutting taxes, I say listen up because this is your…

I can't help but be somewhat amused by all this talk about the private sector--the private sector involved in these students loans. We want this private sector to keep going --this private sector. Let me point out, Mr. President, that the…

Not only do they get the 16-percent guarantee, they get a $7.5 billion subsidy from the taxpayers of this country. So I think the Senator is absolutely right. If they want to be private sector, let's put it out for bid. Some years ago, as…

And I understand that. I want to make a couple points, I hope, clear, and that is, the Federal Government is the ultimate guarantor, not the guaranty agency.

I think the Senator makes a good point. As I pointed out, even with this modest cut of 25 percent, that leaves, over the next 5 years, $4.58 billion for these guaranty agencies. I haven't seen any evidence that this would be at all…

I submit to my friend from Arkansas that one of the greatest myths about the guaranteed loan program is that the agencies are the real guarantors of the loans. I think, contrary to popular belief, the Federal Government is the guarantor…

Those six countries purchased only about 2 percent of the total world ag imports in 1996. When India and Pakistan were added, the result was only 3.2 percent of the total world ag trade subject to U.S. sanctions. That is simply not enough…

Again, Madam President, I just want to point out, again, I do happen to have these figures available. For the State of Arkansas right now, the reserve fund is $7.9 million--$7.9 million that Arkansas has in its reserve fund. Even under my…

Lastly, I just say to my friend from Arkansas, who now has assumed the chair, that there was some mention made that this amendment was a direct threat to the Guaranteed Loan Program and a way of tilting it toward the Direct Loan Program…

In the State of Arkansas, the Harkin amendment would continue to give $3.8 million over the next 5 years. That is hardly going insolvent.

I have several letters here--one from the Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, in support of this amendment; one from the American Council on Education in support of the amendment; one from a consortium including U.S. PIRG, United States…

under last year's VA/HUD appropriations act, the Congress created a program called ``mark-to-market'' to reduce overmarket section 8 contract rents on FHA-insured multifamily properties. Section 514(g)(2)(A) of the mark-to-market program…