Dusty Johnson: “I rise to offer support for this bipartisan amendment Senator Dorgan and Senator Grassley have sponsored. This is truly…”

“I rise to offer support for this bipartisan amendment Senator Dorgan and Senator Grassley have sponsored. This is truly an astonishing debate. People all around America must be shaking their heads as they listen to this debate about whether a business that is being subsidized to the tune of $275,000 by the taxpayers should regard that as inadequate, and that we should be told we are pulling the rug out from under a business because they are only getting a $275,000 taxpayer-paid subsidy, that they need a $550,000 subsidy in order to cashflow. Has it really come to this? Is this what American agricultural policy is all about, half-million-dollar subsidies and anything less is regarded as somehow inadequate? This is amazing. I think it is time for us to recognize the current structure of the farm program payments has in fact failed rural communities and family-sized farmers and ranchers. The advocates of the amendment, including myself, would suggest that anyone who wishes to farm the entire county is free to do so. This is a free country. Farm however much they wish, but there should be some reasonable limitation as to how much the taxpayers ought to be expected to assist with their cashflow, and $275,000 strikes me as a generous level of support. That is what this amendment is all about.”