Jon S. Corzine: “I rise to oppose the House-Senate conference report on the farm bill. I do so, with deep regret. While I now live in a…”

“I rise to oppose the House-Senate conference report on the farm bill. I do so, with deep regret. While I now live in a suburban New Jersey community and have for 25 years, I was raised on a 120-acre family grain farm in central Illinois. I know from experience the rewards of working the soil and tending the fields. And I know, too, the very real experience of living life on the economic edge, as so many of our Nation's farmers do. But this legislation is not the way to help our farmers. I opposed the Senate version of this legislation when it passed the Senate in February because I believed it was fiscally imprudent, hurt consumers as well as many of the farmers it was intended to help, subsidized one sector of the American economy to the exclusion of others, and because it provided relatively little assistance to New Jersey's farmers. Unfortunately, the bill that has come out of conference committee is worse on all these counts. For that reason, I must vote no again.”