Political Quotes

“today I rise to discuss the farm bill that will be up in full Committee on Appropriations tomorrow, and I suspect the plans are to bring that legislation before this Chamber next week. I would like to discuss my and many others' beliefs that a great inequity exists in our farm policy that has been passed in the farm bill, and the fact that we have a chance to correct that inequity in this appropriations bill. This is not a new topic in Congress and, as well, it is not a new topic on the floor of the House. As a farmer and a former administrator of farm programs at USDA, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, I, like most of us, know the importance of providing help to our family farms. The inequity of farm subsidies, because there is no limit on price support subsidy guarantees, results in giving the very large farmers a greater advantage. That means they have price protection on all of the total acreage of the particular crops that they grow that were subsidized by the farm program. That means that we encourage more production and that means that the smaller farmers have a harder time surviving and that means that the larger farmers tend to buy out the smaller farmers. While reasonable limits have been set for direct price support payments to farmers, these limits are meaningless to large or corporate farms. Why? Because of the creative use of generic certificates.…”