Collin Peterson: “in 2002 we passed a bipartisan farm bill that has been successful. In the first 3 years of the bill, we saved 40 percent…”

“in 2002 we passed a bipartisan farm bill that has been successful. In the first 3 years of the bill, we saved 40 percent below what we spent the 3 years of the last farm bill. We saved $15 billion below what was projected to be in the farm bill. Yet, unbelievably, they are asking us to open this bill up and cut another $3 billion out of the bill. I do not think anybody can tell me any other part of the government that saves money during this period of time, and we were promised during that conference that we were not going to change this bill. Farmers made decisions based on the fact that the farm bill was going to be there for 5 years. So this is absolutely the wrong thing for us to do. The Committee on Appropriations has already capped some of the programs in the farm bill in the last 2 go-arounds. We think this is unfair. This breaks a contract that we have with the American farmers. For those of you who represent farm country, I can tell you most of your farm groups are opposed to making these cuts to the farm program that are being proposed in this budget.”