Political Quotes

“obviously we would prefer to provide assistance without offsets, but the reality of the situation is that there will be no disaster money before we go home unless we provide budget offsets. We will not touch the farm commodity programs that are the heart of the farm bill. The savings we are making will cap the Conservation Security Program at $6 billion. That is three times the amount of money that was put into this program. It was a new program when the farm bill was created. This is a new program still in its start-up phase. The gentleman suggested that some people might be at risk for this program. This year, this program will spend $175 million. With the 3 years remaining in the farm bill and $9 billion to spend, nothing is at risk in the rest of the farm bill. We should make sure we accomplish two things here: use this money, as we did 18 months ago with support from the folks on the other side of the aisle, to do exactly what we are doing today; and make sure that we put a cap back on this program so that it does not raid other parts of the farm bill. We can accomplish both of those goals here tonight. I urge my colleagues to support this vital amendment.”