William Pryor: “Mr. President, I am stunned listening to my good friend from Idaho talk about the politics of the season. If talking…”

“Mr. President, I am stunned listening to my good friend from Idaho talk about the politics of the season. If talking about the politics surrounding the vote this afternoon on a bill that the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee has never had hearings on, has never passed, when the other party has frozen this side of the aisle totally out of any negotiations relative to meeting our commitment to an agriculture bill for the farmers of this country--they come forward with something known as the freedom-to-farm-bill. The freedom-to-farm bill, Mr. President, frankly, is a bill that the farmers in France should love. Our competitors overseas should love the freedom-to-farm bill because what it is going to mean is that our farmers are going to be unable to compete in the international and world markets. This bill spells doomsday for the farmers of America. It spells doomsday for the agriculture programs in our country that are the envy of the world. Mr. President, I cannot believe that my friend from Idaho is talking about the politics of the moment when it is his party that has prevented a real debate on the 1996 agriculture bill to take place. This bill was written by budgeteers. It was not written by the Agriculture Committee in the House or in the Senate. It was written by the budget committees, Mr. President. My friend from Idaho knows that.”