Political Quotes

“I appreciate the courtesy very much. I wanted to take a brief moment to indicate to my friend from Alabama I couldn't agree more that we need to make sure the food assistance programs--every farm program and every program in the Federal Government--have rigorous review and that we are holding taxpayer dollars accountable. We have held accountability hearings in the Senate, in the Agriculture Committee. The good news is, there is only a 4-percent error rate in the entire SNAP program through the supplemental nutrition program being talked about, but there is more we can do. The case of the lottery winner in Michigan the Senator talked about was outrageous, and it has been fixed. They can't do that anymore. We are going to fix it in the next farm bill as well. I could not agree more. We are going to go through and fix those things that don't make sense. But I would also say that what the Senator is suggesting is, first of all, policy that needs to be done in the context of the farm bill negotiations. We have an extraordinary agreement we have reached between myself and our ranking member in the Senate and the chair and ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, and we are putting together language to give to the supercommittee that will address nutrition as well as other areas. I would ask my colleagues to support our effort that we will be putting forward.…”