Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would like to take a moment this afternoon to talk about the importance of crop insurance as a risk management tool. I think we will probably have a lot of discussion on the floor about crop insurance, but, as I said, as a matter of policy, we are moving away from direct subsidies. We certainly have not subsidized tobacco growers for a long time, and I would not support doing that. In general, we are moving away from that into an insurance model where the cost is shared between the Federal Government and growers. We want as many growers as possible to purchase crop insurance rather than have a disaster and then want us to pass a disaster assistance bill. I might add that we didn't have to do that this last time around despite the worst drought in 50, 60, 70 years because the crop insurance worked this last year. Crop insurance covered the losses. It is a very important public-private sector process and partnership. One of my concerns about carving it up, having limits or removing one crop over another is that we have been moving away from a general policy of insurance. Going down the road, I think that would have a lot of implications and farmers in general would have great concern about that. I have a tremendous amount of sympathy and, in fact, agreement with the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I sympathize with what my colleague was saying about tobacco as far as the harm to health and so on.…”