Tom Harkin

This is especially important as we seek to make good on President Obama's commitment to end childhood hunger in America by 2015.

But farmers and ranchers are a great strength of this economy. And I am confident that they will help lead the way to recovery.

I hope, that you and other members of the committee are now getting to know the Tom Vilsack that those of us in Iowa have known for a long time, a very dynamic, smart, and progressive leader who is not afraid of change.

I appreciate that. I support streamlining that could be done over there.

I am glad to see that you have kept the mandatory funding levels for other programs like the CRP and CSP.

In my view, these programs are now more important than ever, especially as we work to address significant environmental concerns like climate change.

I am a little concerned, I must note for the record, about the proposed cutbacks in the WRP program and the EQIP program in the budget proposal.

I am really glad that you have put in your budget an extra billion dollars a year for child nutrition programs.

The farm bill was not exactly the bill that I would have written, and I think everybody on the Senate and House Agriculture Committee's would say the same thing.

I am very disappointed with the amount allocated in the President's budget for conservation programs.

The more open we are, the more transparent we are, the more information that people have out there in a regulatory framework, the better off we are all going to be.

I want to challenge you on why you cannot do this on a regulated exchange.

I think you would actually lower the costs because you would have more people that would be able to trade with each other with regard to swaps.

I appreciate your comments today, and hopefully maybe if we move some legislation this year, we can also finally close that loophole.

I am proud of the fact I am one of nine Members of the Senate who voted against deregulation of Glass-Steagall.

Well, I do not know if we really want the free flow of capital; maybe we want the more efficient flow of capital.

I think that was a mistake, and I said so at the time. But it did not have the votes.

Well, fooled once, your mistake. Fooled twice, my mistake.

You know, liquidity is good, but too much liquidity can be bad.

If we want the free flow of traffic, do away with all the stop lights.

I appreciate, first of all, that this is the unanimous position of the Commission, as I understand.

I offered an amendment on the last farm bill to close Zelener. We passed it in the Senate.

I fully expect our witnesses to be able to tell us, No. 1, how they utilize them from the standpoint of making the economy of this country stronger.

We have got to strengthen the hand of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The public has an interest in regulating that sort of 'creativity.'