Thomas Daschle: “Madam President, when the Senate passed the farm bill 202 days ago, we agreed, overwhelmingly, to include assistance for…”

“Madam President, when the Senate passed the farm bill 202 days ago, we agreed, overwhelmingly, to include assistance for farmers and ranchers who suffered serious economic losses as a result of natural disasters during the crop-year of last year. Madam President, 69 Senators--Republicans and Democrats--voted to include that assistance in the farm bill. The administration at that time, and Republican House leaders, objected. In conference, they threatened to block any farm bill from passing unless we removed the natural disaster assistance for this year. They said they would block all assistance for farmers and ranchers unless we agreed to drop disaster assistance. So, reluctantly, we agreed. But we said, when the farm bill passed, that the need for disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers would not go away. It would only get worse, and we would have to revisit the issue. That is what we are doing once again today. Our amendment is simple and straightforward. It does not create a new program. All it does is fund existing crop loss and livestock assistance programs for this year and last year.”