Political Quotes

“this amendment will strike section 132 from the farm bill and replace it with a study of the impact of our Federal dairy policy on producers and consumers. I am proud to be joined by Senators Bingaman, Domenici, Brownback, Craig, and Voinovich. There has been a lot of national attention provided to the issue of national dairy policy. As the provisions in the farm bill in the Senate dealing with dairy were first proposed, there was a very strong outcry across the country, which I supported. It is my understanding the proposals have been modified somewhat. What we first started out with was a proposal that would have increased the costs to our consumers, increased the costs--reduced the price to our farmers or our producers and created a national subsidy program for milk in the middle. This would have resulted in our school lunch program, for example, paying millions more dollars nationwide, our Food Stamp Program paying millions of more dollars nationwide, and a reduction of the consumption of milk because of the increased price of milk that this new national dairy program would have required. It has been modified somewhat but still achieves the same types of negative results in the managers' amendment that has been proposed as a substitute for the bill that is now on the floor. It is an ill-conceived attempt to create a national dairy program that is unfair, is unwanted, and untested.”