Byron Dorgan: “I suppose some people get irritated about those of us, Senator Wellstone, myself, Senator Conrad, Senator Harkin, and…”

“I suppose some people get irritated about those of us, Senator Wellstone, myself, Senator Conrad, Senator Harkin, and others who come to the floor to talk so much about the plight of family farmers. But at a time when our newspapers trumpet the growing economy and the good news on Wall Street with a stock market that keeps going up, at the same time we have a full-scale crisis in rural America with grain prices for family farmers in constant dollars being about where they were in the Great Depression. You cannot solve this without dealing with prices. Farmers are paying more for what they purchase and getting less for what they sell. The most memorable moment, I guess, was from a fellow named Arlo, who was an auctioneer. He told of doing an auction sale at this family farm. A little boy came up to him at the end of the sale and grabbed him by the leg, and with tears in his eyes, shouted up at him, he said: You sold my dad's tractor.”