There are a lot of things good about this bill. Farmers need some help; but there are some bad things about this bill. One is the fact that there is a loophole where farmers, where the huge farmers, the megafarms, can receive millions of…

The fact is if we had real limits that would include what is called the generic certificate, which is the end run, the huge megacorporation type farms used to have the million dollar payments, then there is no question that we would have a…

The failure to include real payments limits in the farming bill, I think, is an example of entrenched special interests frustrating the will of the majority. The conferees, generally the most senior Members of the House and Senate…

that is sort of a cue to allow me to talk a little bit about how we are putting pressure on the small, traditional crop farmer in the United States. We passed my amendment to put real limits on and get rid of the loophole on a vote of 265…

and that is bad for farmers. The question is how big is a family farm and Members can get into that argument. But the average-size farm in the United States is 460 acres. The average size commercial farm that does not have other outside…

I thank the Speaker. So here again is a real problem of asking us to vote on something that we are not even going to be able to read. If they give it to us at the last minute tomorrow morning, it is my guess that we are looking at a bill…

that might hit our family farmers that are producing sugar even more aggressively than the tariff rate quotas that we tried to develop to protect them.

Farm subsidies to 12 Fortune 500 companies rose by 82 percent, and here are farm payments from these big companies that probably bought some extra land, and then they sign up this land to get government farm payments. Farm policy should be…

Really, that is essentially through taxes, but an increase in the cost of their food. If you add to that maybe some production that the market is paying more than it otherwise would, than there is even additional costs.

the statistic I think, at least for last year, is 40 percent of the net income of farmers came in government checks. If farmers do not like it, our goal has to be to increase production.

maybe sometimes too much control and ability to have it their own way instead of having it the people's way. So hopefully in the future it will change. Earlier I used the word ``arrogant'' in describing the disregard of conferees to…

let me just briefly review, or sort of give the skinny on what I see happening in the farm bill. Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat of North Dakota and Charles Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, were the leaders over in the Senate that said…

I see also that this is a problem of the survival of the future of farm programs. With all of this publicity that is going out, and it does not matter what paper we pick up, they now realize that there is a loophole; and the Environmental…

I am going to spend some minutes talking about something that I think is very important to this country, certainly important to farmers. That is the new farm bill. In 1996, we passed farm legislation that was called Freedom to Farm. It was…

the Lifesaver plant over in Holland, Michigan, producing pretty much all of the Lifesavers produced in the world, has now made the decision, because of the price of sugar, that they are going to go to Canada.

In this November's election, there is going to be a lot of talk and debate about Social Security. As a person that has worked for the last 9 years on the Social Security problems; and how we achieve the best possible solution to make sure…

the leadership is currently considering a proposal to change the definition of debt subject to the debt limit. This proposal would create a new lower limit applying only to debt held by the public. This would exclude debt owed to…

Let me just say that a Senate that quite often is partisan in trying to come to agreement overwhelmingly supported this idea of some kind of a payment limitation. The gentleman from the other side of the aisle suggests that this kind of a…

I have been a farmer all my life, a director of the Michigan Farm Bureau. I understand farm programs. To respond to your question why are farmers going broke, it is because Federal agricultural programs encourage more production, and that…

Mr. President, I stand before you today to offer one the most important amendments for the family farmer we have ever considered. There have been a number of important amendments already considered during the farm bill debate, and a couple…

I would like to correct the gentleman from Arkansas when he states that this proposal limits the participation of retired farmers or retired farmers' spouses or widows of retired farmers. The Senate proposal provides exemptions. For…

sometimes I am not too good on politics, but I like to think that I am good on policy. I think both sides have decided it is good policy to have this kind of bankruptcy provision for American agriculture. Just briefly, let me explain what…

this week we are taking up the budget. We are going to increase the limit on how deep this government can go into debt. Every year we spend more tax dollars and we add more government services, and my concern is that too many Americans are…

following the presentation from the Blue Dogs, let me just say from our side of the aisle that the Blue Dogs have come up with some good, thoughtful ideas in terms of fiscal responsibility. I think we have to be careful about not passing…

the agricultural industry in the United States over the last 100 years has contributed a great deal. As we develop this year's farm bill, we are now trying to decide, number one, how much should we pay in terms of tax subsidies to farmers…