Tom Coburn: “It was an amendment to eliminate things that are already being done in this country through the Agriculture Department.…”

“It was an amendment to eliminate things that are already being done in this country through the Agriculture Department. For example, specialty cheeses, they have grown by 15 to 20 percent per year. We have 16 different marketing agencies the Government, in one way or another, is already funding. We spend $2.5 million a year in Wisconsin already through the Ag Department. We are going to spend $1.6 million with the Vermont cheese marketing program for artesian cheeses. Yet in this bill we are authorizing another program. This amendment was designed to take that out. Also, this amendment deals with areas in terms of USDA loans for golf courses, for resorts, for entertainment complexes, to businesses that have nothing to do with agriculture, to businesses that have assets in excess of $60 billion apiece.”