Political Quotes

“First of all, let me address some of the points that have come up by the very distinguished chairman about the inconsistency in his mind of my supporting a program that is in New York. Well, I also support programs that are in Mississippi, Montana and North Carolina and all across this country because I support the bill. I think it is a good bill. Mr. Chairman, I would ask both the chairman and members of the committee and all of my colleagues, if we had a program that was in place under various guises since 1938, and still we were seeing that the marketplace was not responding to the subsidy, that we were still hemorrhaging market share, and still losing the jobs and had fewer and fewer heads of sheep that were being lost, why would you deem it to be a successful program? Can anyone argue by any measure that it is a successful program? Is it successful for the average farmer that will get $44? The gentleman from Montana said we need to keep it in place because of the strength of the dollar or because of trade disputes. We will add those to the list of justifications and reasons that have been growing since 1938. Let me reiterate the statistics of this. 1993 we had a subsidy. There was a 5.2 percent reduction in wool production. 1994 we had a subsidy, 11 percent loss. 1995 we had a subsidy, 8 percent loss. 1996 we had a subsidy, 11 percent loss. 1997 we did not have a subsidy, we only had a 3 percent loss.”