Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about the critically important piece of legislation currently before the Senate, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act. But first I would like to thank Senators Stabenow and Roberts for the great work they have done to get us to this point in the reauthorization process. The bill as reported out of the Agriculture Committee saves taxpayers more than $23 billion over the next 10 years and will support millions of jobs. With this bill, we are taking several important steps in making our farm support system more responsive to actual need rather than sending payments to producers no matter what they grow. We are long past due in eliminating direct payments. At the same time, we are maintaining a strong crop insurance program and creating a new system that makes assistance available to producers when they actually experience a loss. Another important area of reform in this bill is payment limitations and ensuring that actual farmers receive payments. Senator Grassley and I have worked for years to lower the caps on our farm program payments and to direct payments to family farmers. The new Agriculture Risk Coverage Program contains a cap of $50,000 and requires that program payment recipients contribute labor to the farm operation. Current law has enabled multiple farm managers in an operation to qualify for separate farm program payments with as little participation as one conference call a year. Not anymore under this bill.…”