Duncan Faircloth: “this is the wrong time for a debate on tobacco taxes. No one is opposed to food safety, but I'm not so enthusiastic…”

“this is the wrong time for a debate on tobacco taxes. No one is opposed to food safety, but I'm not so enthusiastic about a plan that raises taxes on already cash-strapped tobacco farmers to pay for new USDA bureaucrats. Farmers all over the country are hurting, and we're pledging to help them, but this amendment will continue to hold up our work on this bill. We all know that this is just politics because the House will ``blue slip'' the bill. This is certainly the wrong time to make things worse for tobacco farmers--the real effect of this amendment. This is a misguided attempt to tax small farmers to pay for the Clinton Administration's new spending proposals. Mr. President, like farmers everywhere, tobacco farmers are hurting. The southeast is dry. We don't know how much tobacco the companies will buy. We shouldn't be passing any amendments that make their lives any tougher. This will do just that. So, the tobacco farmer is about to get hit--again. Like he has been throughout this tobacco debate, the farmer is forgotten. The farmer will get hit with lower prices for his tobacco as the companies try to hold the line on costs. What happened to all the talk about helping farmers, the demands for action? Instead, this amendment proposes to throw up another hurdle in their way, another obstacle to making the payments, in order to fund President Clinton's new spending. The companies will take this tax out of the price paid to the farmer.”