Political Quotes

“I rise today to join my colleagues in asking for the passage of the farm bill that we are going to have a vote on shortly. I thank my colleague from Michigan, the Chair of the Agriculture Committee, for her unbelievable work on this very important policy for America. I know she understands these issues well because, while everybody thinks of Michigan as a manufacturing State, it also is a very big agricultural State. We share a lot of the same crops, being kind of on a northern plateau: apples and wine and a variety of others. I certainly thank her for her help and support in getting an important new program in our school lunches for very nutritious peas and lentils, called pulse crops, and to thank her for her input. I rise today to talk about the importance of the farm bill, because it is a jobs bill for our Nation. Two years ago I joined my colleague Senator Johanns from Nebraska and sent a bipartisan letter with 44 Senators saying it was time to act on the farm bill because we thought it was so important for our economy as we were still struggling coming out of a recession. Today it is finally here, that opportunity to put all of that hard work into a bill that goes to the President's desk. Agriculture employs 16 million Americans, and it produces exports worth $115 billion of agricultural products to markets around the world. I do not think we always focus on that.…”