On the recordOctober 11, 2013
I thank the chairman for allowing us time to talk. Madam Speaker, it is a bit surreal on a couple of levels, one, to be speaking from this side of the Chamber, and two, to be speaking against two of my colleagues who it is rare in my term here in Congress that I have been on a different side of an issue from--my good colleagues from Georgia and from Wisconsin. But on this one I stand in strong opposition to the Ryan-Price amendment. I just wanted to say how weird this feels to talk against something that my good colleagues from Wisconsin and Georgia are proposing to do. One point that was just made was that there was a $14 billion payout last year in disaster insurance losses to farmers in America. That's a cherry-picked year. Folks, remember, 2012 was historic droughts throughout most of ag production America, and so, consequently, last year was a much higher year than would have normally been the case. It is normally about $4 billion a year in that regard. I would also remind our colleagues that we fought this fight in July. Just like the Senate went one direction with the vote, we went the other direction, with a 208-217 vote on this floor. So we have had these conversations already and won this argument already. This effort will punish success, will punish efficiency. It is hard to farm using $300,000 tractors if you have got a small farm. It takes 3,000 acres to be able to support the implements and the tools needed to farm as efficiently as American farmers produce.…
