Political Quotes

“I am looking for the exact date, but the farm bill expires tomorrow, and we have to extend the farm bill or go back to the 1949 extension. Again, I would say to my friend I am operating with some concerns about the questions that are raised. But, again, I say, first of all, what happened in the Deficit Reduction Act is that the bill that was sent to the President, the provisions were never passed by the Senate. Every provision that was sent to the President was sent to the President after overwhelming votes from the House, overwhelming votes from the Senate in exactly the same position. Title III was passed by the Senate and the House, and inadvertently left out. In the Deficit Reduction Act, figures were changed in the bill subsequent to passing the Senate and never passed by the House. So I would suggest that the analogy between the two is not apt. In addition, there was no bipartisan discussion on that change. In this case, Mr. Peterson and Mr. Goodlatte are both on the floor. I didn't participate in those conversations. But I was informed by Mr. Peterson, because I said, have you talked to Mr. Goodlatte about this. He said he had. There had been significant discussions about that. There was concern about getting the farm bill passed because of the expiration of the existing authorization. As a result of those discussions, my personal thought was there was bipartisan agreement that we could proceed this way. We did proceed that way.”