Sam Brownback: “I wish to speak briefly in favor of the Baucus amendment because of the situation in my home State. Parts of my State…”

“I wish to speak briefly in favor of the Baucus amendment because of the situation in my home State. Parts of my State have had the worst drought in a century. It is being compared by some veteran farmers to what they witnessed in the Dust Bowl era--crops withering and dying in the fields before the farmers' eyes without any ability to address it. I grew up on a farm. My family still farms. I was secretary of agriculture in Kansas. I have seen these situations. The one point I want to add--I think people pretty well understand these issues--what I want to address is that in some disaster relief-- and we seem to be in a cycle because we have disasters hitting every year, but it is a compassionate society that tries to help those in the worst situation. But more than that, they do not win if they get hit by a disaster and then we do disaster drought assistance. I have not seen people come out ahead. What we try to do is get them back toward zero so they do not lose too much money, so they can continue to farm and continue to operate their ranch and work their crops.”