David Minge: “Mr. Speaker, we certainly, as many speakers have already said this morning, have seen a historic agreement reached. It…”

“Mr. Speaker, we certainly, as many speakers have already said this morning, have seen a historic agreement reached. It certainly is uncommon for us to see a major controversial piece of legislation drawing support from the White House, from the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate, and from most of the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate. It is a massive bill. This morning we have been treated to repeated demonstrations of the size of the bill and the awkwardness of even trying to work one's way through it. I think it is fairly safe to say that nobody in this body will have a chance to review this bill in detail before it is voted on. It has large provisions which most of us are familiar with and most of us probably agree with. It has small provisions that only a few of us know about because they affect our areas. I would like to just mention one of them which I think is of significance to American agriculture, to point out that this is typical of small things that find their way into big bills. We have labored in American agriculture with a very restrictive ruling from the Internal Revenue Service that prohibited farmers from taking advantage of deferred payment contracts. It is because of the alternative minimum tax. This legislation corrects that. Many say the devil is in the details.”