Sam Brownback: “I rise today to put on the record my concerns about numerous provisions contained in this year's conference report of…”

“I rise today to put on the record my concerns about numerous provisions contained in this year's conference report of the Ag appropriations bill. Specifically, I am greatly concerned that this year's bill single-handedly turns back a number of reforms made by the 1996 farm bill and moves us further away from an agriculture policy that looks to the markets rather than government for survival. The danger of following such a philosophy is that government is not likely to have the will to sustain the ag industry indefinitely, so that when the political will to support agriculture dries up, there will be massive calamity. There are legitimate ag emergencies occurring in the country right now. My family is still on the farm, Kansas is the 4th largest agricultural-producing state in the Nation--and I myself served as Secretary of Agriculture for the State of Kansas before coming to the U.S. Senate. I am not here to find fault with providing additional aid to farmers. Indeed, it is in our national interest to do so. My problem is not with the concept of government assistance to farmers--but rather in the shape this assistance is beginning to take--especially this year.”