Political Quotes

“I guess I have been around this old business of agriculture about as long as anybody. We have seen high commodity prices and we have seen low commodity prices. Years ago, when we would get a high surplus of any type of commodity, the price went down and so did the price in the grocery store. We had to eat our way out of this thing, so to speak. It happened in livestock, pork and beef and chicken products. But that is not the case anymore. I was interested in his chart showing how, even though the price of sugar has gone down, the prices of candy, cookies, other baked goods, cereal, and ice cream has continued to go up. I don't want anybody fiddling with my ice cream. I like it like it is. If it goes up a little bit, that is OK. But don't come back and say if all of the support is taken away from sugar, the prices will go down in the store. It doesn't work with this product. It was about a year and a half ago that live hogs hit an all-time low and got down to around 10 cents a pound. Yet, when I went to my grocery stores out here in Springfield, VA, and back in Billings, MT, guess what? Boned out, double-cut pork chops were still around $5 to $6 a pound. Folks, I don't know how sharp your pencil is. But that ``don't pencil.'' That just ``don't pencil.'' We are looking at a program that has cost the taxpayer virtually nothing. Yet it sustains many small farmers.”