Byron Dorgan: “I want very much, now that conferees are appointed, for them to work around the clock in order to resolve the…”

“I want very much, now that conferees are appointed, for them to work around the clock in order to resolve the differences on the farm bill, bring it to the floor of the House and Senate and get a farm bill in place. The fact is, farmers in North Dakota, tens of thousands of them, are now ready to go to the fields. In a matter of weeks, they will be in the fields doing spring planting. The farm bill that was supposed to have been passed last year was not. It is now mid-March 1996, and we do not yet have a farm bill. I have discerned that really if this is a revolution in the 104th Congress, it is a revolution with two speeds: One is a full gallop when it comes to the larger economic interests. Let Wall Street have a headache, and we have a dozen people rushing in with medicine bottles. Let some of the larger corporate interests complain about a bellyache, and we have people who want to tuck them in bed. But let family farmers out there go around without a farm bill and people say there is no need for a farm program; we do not need to get a farm bill for the family farmer.”