Political Quotes

“the next bill we introduce should be that we make this permanent. This seems to me ridiculous that we come before this body every 4 or 5 or 6 months to make a temporary increase in legislation in the bankruptcy law that is so important to American farmers. Let me just tell my colleagues why it is so important to farmers. Farmers, under the other provisions of the bankruptcy law which the two previous speakers related to, have to file either under chapter 13 or 11 or 7; and in most cases, they are required to sell a lot of their machinery, which means that if they want to try to work themselves out of that financial situation, there is no possibility of doing it without machinery. It was just a few months ago that we were on this floor of the House urging our colleagues to vote for H.R. 256. This was a bill to retroactively bring chapter 12 to May 31. I am pleased that the bill was signed by the President, but also now we are with this bill that I urge my colleagues to support. I had hoped that by the end of May the House and Senate would have agreed to a major bankruptcy reform package that would have included permanent chapter 12 protection. Unfortunately, and through no fault of this House, these two bodies have still not reached agreement. Further, it is unclear when such an agreement is going to be reached. In the meantime, since May 31, family farmers have been without chapter 12 reorganization protection, and that is what brings us here today.”