Political Quotes

“The No. 1 person who cares about the environmental quality of their land is the farmer. The bigger the farmer, the more they care. The No. 4 farmer, as far as crop insurance in the country, farms 105,000 acres. The average farmer in Oklahoma has 160 acres. They will make an economic decision, and if a 15-percent bump in their premium will cause them to go out, they will go out. But they will not go out because it is too much of a sweetheart deal. We are still going to pay almost half of their crop insurance--50 percent. Does anybody else have that kind of deal going? Nobody else has that kind of deal going. What we are saying is, let's save some money and ask those who are more well endowed with benefits and profits to pay a fairer share of what they should be paying based on the benefits they get. The one thing the chairwoman didn't say is these are the guys who collect the big bucks when there is one. They do pay a portion of it, but their payouts are hundreds of times higher than the average farmer. They will make an economic decision, and they are not going to walk away from this because it is still--even at 48 percent--too sweet of a deal for any of them to walk away. There is no study that says they will walk away. Wait and see. If they walk away, Senator Durbin and I will walk down and offer mea culpas on the Senate floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.”