Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from Arizona for his passion on this issue. Yes, it has been my goal from the beginning of this farm bill process to end unnecessary subsidies and to clean up areas of waste, fraud, and abuse starting with the direct payment program. The program is indefensible in this current budget climate. It makes absolutely no sense to pay farmers when they don't suffer a loss and to pay people who aren't even farming. That is also why we included the strongest reforms to the commodity programs in the history of the farm bill, eliminating payments to people who are not farming and tightening the AGI requirements and the amount any single farmer can receive. We even have reformed the crop insurance program. The No. 1 thing we have heard from listening to farmers all across this country is that they need market-based risk management tools. Farming is an extremely risky business. Farmers plant seeds in the spring and hope that by the time the harvest rolls around there will have been enough rain and the right temperatures to give them a good crop. That is why we strengthened crop insurance and made that available to farmers growing different kinds of crops--because we want farmers to have skin in the game. As I have always said, that is about farmers paying a bill for crop insurance, not getting a check from the direct payment program.”