Robert Smith: “I have worked for the last few months with the gentleman from Texas and others interested in agriculture to try to reach…”

“I have worked for the last few months with the gentleman from Texas and others interested in agriculture to try to reach agreements which would benefit the agriculture community in this Nation on a basis of trust and mutual respect, and to attempt to keep this question, which is so likely to slip into partisan politics, out of that arena. So I must remind Members that we have already taken action, and this leadership, by the way, has taken action to support agriculture in this country, and the gentleman from Texas will remember, with the Square Deal for Agriculture, which included lifting sanctions in Indonesia, which included normal relations with China, and that I join him and he joins me in the effort to pass funding for IMF and for fast track. Since that time, we have searched to find ways to put cash in the hands of agriculturalists in this Nation without distorting world prices for commodities. We have done that by moving the transfer payments, as the gentleman well knows, and he was a part of that, to place in farmers' hands some $5 billion by the 1st of October, which were transfer payments under the AMTA program, in their hands for their discretionary use.”