Patrick Leahy: “I have worked with the distinguished chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and now Presiding Officer, for over…”

“I have worked with the distinguished chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and now Presiding Officer, for over 20 years between the House and the Senate. I know how hard it is to put such a bill together. The distinguished Senator from Iowa worked very closely with all Members--both Republicans and Democrats--in meeting after meeting, conversation after conversation, on the floor, in their offices, in the Senate dining room, walking across the Hill. A farm bill has a number of diverse aspects to it. The President seems to wrap everything into some kind of sense of patriotism. We have to be patriotic. We have to have a missile defense system to be patriotic, we have to pass tax credits. Incidentally, the last tax cut and stimulus package they proposed would have given, I believe, a quarter of a billion dollars to Enron. I am not quite sure just what kind of patriotism comes out of giving another $250 million of taxpayers' money to Enron. Maybe it is because I come from Vermont and not Texas, but it didn't seem all that patriotic.”