Thomas Mott Osborne: “recently other members of the House Committee on Agriculture and I met with the Commissioner of Agriculture of the…”

“recently other members of the House Committee on Agriculture and I met with the Commissioner of Agriculture of the European Union. She was not very complimentary of our current farm bill. She knows it keeps our farm economy very competitive with the European Union. Unfortunately, this commissioner's sentiments mirror the sentiments of many Americans. Many believe that the farm bill is too expensive, and I believe as we write a new budget the farm bill will certainly be on the chopping block. But I think it is important that we think about and remember a few things as we go into this process. First of all, in looking at the chart here, we can see that the current farm bill, which went into effect in 2002, actually was budgeted to cost $14 billion that year and it cost $13 billion. In 2003 it was budgeted to cost about 18.6 and it cost 12.1. In 2004, which we have just completed, the projected budgetary cost was $17.5 billion, and it actually cost $10.1 billion. So the net effect is that what was supposed to cost roughly $50 billion has cost us $35 billion. So the farm program is one of the few Federal programs that is way under budget and has certainly given the taxpayer a tremendous return on investment.”