Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about what we need to be doing certainly to support the farmers across our country. I know Republican colleagues spoke just a while ago about the need to refill what we call the CCC to make sure that we are providing the funding for the October payments for the farm bill. As one of the authors of the farm bill, I certainly know we have to make those payments, and the good news is that there is enough money there now to do that, although we certainly also want to be providing emergency support, disaster support, for growers who have been hit and have had losses as a result of the Trump chaotic trade policies, as a result of what has happened under COVID-19. Our farmers have been hit every which way, including what is happening on climate change and the weather, prices, everything else, and we certainly want to make sure that they have what they need. I want to raise two points today. One is that in order to do that, the USDA should be focusing on a GAO report that was released on Monday that indicated and actually reaffirmed a report that I released with our Senate Democratic colleagues on the Agricultural Committee that, in fact, the payments going out to farmers have not been fair. They have been picking winners and losers; they have been picking regions in the South, big farms in the South, not over the Midwest or our smaller farmers and over many of those who, frankly, have had the biggest losses.…”