Gilbert Gutknecht: “clearly, listening to the debate now on this issue, it becomes clearer and clearer that the point of order is well…”

“clearly, listening to the debate now on this issue, it becomes clearer and clearer that the point of order is well taken. This is a debate about States' rights. We have heard that. That belongs in the judiciary, not the agriculture, bill. Now, a lot of the arguments we have heard today I share the concern. I represent a lot of dairy farmers. They have had a lot of tough luck here the last several years. And we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. Let me just remind Members of a couple of important facts that have been underscored by independent consultants that have looked at this. The truth of the matter is we are losing dairy farmers at about the same rate in States that are in the compact as those States who are not. Now, we have heard these arguments this morning. We continue to hear them. Well, the dairy compacts will increase the amount of net income for dairy farmers, but it will not raise the price of milk; and it will not cost the taxpayers anything. Well, that sounds like the tooth fairy to me. The truth of the matter is, the only thing that we can honestly say that the dairy compacts have succeeded in doing is to divide the dairy farmers of the United States. That is a mistake. At the very time that we need to speak with one voice about dairy policy, we are speaking with different voices.”