Mike Conaway: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong opposition to this attack on a very important piece of the safety…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong opposition to this attack on a very important piece of the safety net that production agriculture relies upon. There are two possible outcomes for this amendment, and both are bad. The first is that we're going to put the government back in the business of delivering crop insurance. We tried that. It didn't work. Government employees don't act nearly as responsibly as the private sector does. That comes with a cost, but the farmers like it. They get response from these folks that is appropriate. Secondly, we would go back to the possibility of days when we spent billions of dollars on unbudgeted, ad hoc disaster relief. {time} 2220 And that's the least efficient way that we ought to go about this. And that's what this amendment does. It is bad for taxpayers. In spite of my colleagues' comments, this amendment won't save money. It will end up costing us untold billions in this ad hoc disaster spending that's the norm in that regard. I know that the Environmental Working Group and other radical environment groups want to run our farmers and ranchers out of business. I get that. This amendment would certainly help them accomplish their goal. So if your aim today is to stick the American taxpayer with billions of dollars to pay for ad hoc disaster bills, this is your kind of amendment.…”