Political Quotes

“I am very pleased to support the Budget Committee's resolution today. However, I want to alert you to one outstanding issue contained in the budget resolution. In this resolution, the House Budget Committee adopted a new baseline for our crop insurance system--effectively combining mandatory spending from the crop insurance program with ad hoc discretionary spending from the disaster assistance program. North Dakotans are very familiar with both these programs. North Dakota's producers rank first in participation in the crop insurance system for most crops based on acres enrolled. North Dakota has also unfortunately become all too familiar with disaster assistance, with a severe drought in 1988 and most recently the 500-year flood of 1993. The House acted in historic fashion today, combining these funds to strengthen the crop insurance system in a historic tradeoff for disaster assistance that is harder to get. I want to caution my colleagues that I believe the House Budget Committee did not go far enough and as a result, while the shift in the baseline is historic, the funds available may not be enough to accomplish our objective of increased individual risk management rather than annual disaster appropriations bills.”