Dick Lugar: “I point out that these Senators, Senator Coverdell and Senator Cochran, are distinguished members of the Agriculture…”

“I point out that these Senators, Senator Coverdell and Senator Cochran, are distinguished members of the Agriculture Committee and have contributed substantially to the legislation we have before the Senate. I point out, Mr. President, that the CBO budget scoring for this farm bill for the conference agreement on H.R. 2854 comes in at a savings of $2.143 billion under the December 1995 CBO baseline. I simply state that as a matter of fact, because there has been argument as to whether there is a budget implication. I am simply pointing out there is. It is down $2.1 billion, and the baseline of December, 1995, as the Chair knows, is significant, because that came after this abundant year of good farm pricing that we have had. Those farm prices meant a savings to the taxpayers of about $8 billion. If we had been scoring this, as the Chair knows from his service on the Budget Committee--and on this very subject, he authored legislation to try to make certain savings at least were reasonable--as I calculate it, the savings during the year through the market were about $8 billion, and $2 billion more is going to occur in this 7 years. That is substantial change in terms of the budget of the United States. I think that is important to introduce.”