Political Quotes

“These are challenging budgets and difficult economic times. But unfortunately, there really are alternatives to slashing environmental payments and nutritional support in the farm bill. There is an alternative to reform and modernize. The last farm bill pretended to start limitations in payments. But exempted from the modest limitations in some areas were market loan payments, loan deficiency payments, and commodity certificates not capped. This means that entities can virtually receive unlimited title I dollars under the current law. Mr. Chairman, it's important for us, as we are dealing with trying to reduce the strain on the Federal budget, to do so in a way that is strategic. The amendment I propose would establish a $125,000 payment limitation in total. Now, this will save two-thirds of a billion dollars. Bear in mind that we are now cutting existing environmental contracts if this bill came forward. The majority of farmers and ranchers in this country still receive nothing, 62 percent receive nothing. In my State of Oregon, it's 87 percent of the farmers and ranchers. It's time to start with modest restrictions on government subsidies. There are a wide range of areas in this budget. As it's working its way through the House, we're going to see very dramatic reductions, almost a third in transportation. We sliced $1 billion from sewer and water programs to State and local governments.…”