Political Quotes

“I realize we will be having the vote at 2:35, so let me just take one more moment to stress how important it is that we recognize this was an effort in good faith between the House and the Senate and Republicans and Democrats. I too wish to join with my ranking member Senator Cochran in thanking the chairman in the House Frank Lucas. He and ranking member Collin Peterson were true partners with us as we moved through this process. We actually started about 2\1/2\ years ago when the supercommittee on deficit reduction at that time asked each committee to come up with a way to reduce the deficit, to cut spending in their area of jurisdiction. We decided to do it a little differently. Chairman Lucas and I talked and we decided the four of us would get together and actually come up with a House-Senate, Democratic-Republican recommendation that would be solidly supported by all sides. So it was a prenegotiation on the farm bill that we were going to be doing in the next year. So in July, August of 2011, we sat down and started going through ways we could save dollars. We all agreed direct payment subsidies could no longer be justified and needed to be eliminated. We also knew it was important to have a safety net for our farmers, and disaster assistance for our ranchers and farmers as well, and that we needed to help them manage their risk.…”