Willie Hefner: “we have heard the rhetoric and the people testifying and talking about tobacco and the ills of tobacco. If we want to…”

“we have heard the rhetoric and the people testifying and talking about tobacco and the ills of tobacco. If we want to vote to do away with tobacco, this is not the way to do it. We will be called on in just a few minutes to take this little card and we will vote, and potentially the lives and the livelihoods of millions of people across this country will be affected. But this is not going to stop one teenager, one child, nobody from smoking. We will say to these farmers that go out and mortgage their farms, mortgage their allotments and make commitments, we will say to them, OK, these other folks can get crop insurance, but we are sorry about that. These tobacco farmers cannot have crop insurance. If there is a hurricane or a severe storm or whatever, that is just tough, they will not get any insurance. That is punitive, and it affects the lives of thousands and thousands of people that are on the small farms throughout all of this country in different places in this country. That is not fair. And we do not affect the big tobacco companies. This will not have any impact on the big tobacco companies. Somebody said, oh, the big tobacco companies. This does not do anything to the big tobacco companies. All we will do is penalize that hard working family that is trying to send their kids to school and to make a decent living.”