Political Quotes

“This debate is coming to a conclusion. I appreciate that greatly. The civil tone, the nature of the discussion, is something that we should do more of in this body; but I would note a couple of quick thoughts to my colleagues. There have been many references made to the historic crop insurance payments made in the 2012 crop year. One of those amazing circumstances was huge amounts of the Midwest, some of the most productive corn land in America, simply didn't produce a crop--or not much of a crop. That is no fault of the farmer involved. That is Mother Nature's decision not to provide the right amount of moisture or, in other places, too much moisture. {time} 1815 But, you see, that is what crop insurance is all about. When I first came here, we had a system that worked around--not crop insurance, which didn't work very well and wasn't subscribed to by a lot of people. We had a system of ad hoc disasters. If you had a problem here or a problem there, then you would have a special appropriations bill to fund that disaster. Those special bills tended to grow and expand; and over time, they became a huge drain on the Treasury. That is why, starting aggressively in the '96 farm bill--pushed even harder by then-Chairman Peterson in the 2008 farm bill--the focus became: no more ad hoc disasters bills. Have a crop insurance program that works.…”