Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I join with my colleague and friend from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, in introducing the Rural America Preservation Act of 2011, which will provide for common- sense, meaningful farm program payment limitations. Particularly given our country's budgetary constraints, this is a straight-forward and fiscally responsible proposal that would target our farm program payments and safety net. The current farm program payment structure has, quite frankly, failed rural America. According to the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, in 2008, the largest 12.4 percent of farms received 62.4 percent of farm program payments. The current rules permit the most capitalized farming corporations to receive massive subsidies and deprive small and medium-sized family farmers of the opportunity to thrive. The farm bill is intended to provide programs that function as a safety net for farmers, in contrast to the cash cow they've become for a few producers. It is important that we maintain a safety net for producers, but such a system must be targeted to family farmers instead of large agribusinesses. The 2008 farm bill took some important first steps in strengthening the integrity of our farm programs. Under the law, anyone making more than $500,000 in non-farm Adjusted Gross Income will not receive farm payments and producers making over $750,000 AGI will lose their direct payments.…”