Mike Conaway: “First off, a couple of points. One, the 40-some-odd hearings we had in the last couple of years, at every single one of…”

“First off, a couple of points. One, the 40-some-odd hearings we had in the last couple of years, at every single one of them, whether it blocked crop insurance or not, the producers said: Don't screw up crop insurance. Crop insurance is the one risk management tool that we know works, it's the one our bankers understand the best, and don't screw that up. A little history lesson. The 2008 farm bill cut $6 billion out of the crop insurance program and out of the hides of the folks that these folks have been talking about. A re-rating process that USDA went through and RMA went through cut an additional $3 billion. And then the Standard Reinsurance Agreement renegotiation--that Congress had nothing to do with--trimmed another $8 billion. So $17 billion has been reduced out of the crop insurance program since the last time we reauthorized this. Nothing in the base bill stops the USDA from finding savings in the crop insurance program, nothing. They are still able to do that. What we would like to happen with those savings though is we would like for Congress to control those. We don't want the pet projects of the administration, the pet projects of the USDA to get funded. Now, my colleagues threw the words ``deficit reduction'' around in good faith, but that's not what happens with this money. USDA and this administration finds other places to spend the money. We don't think that's the right idea.…”