Thomas Foley: “I would say, a penny for your thoughts. It seems like this program, this one commodity is always singled out on this…”

“I would say, a penny for your thoughts. It seems like this program, this one commodity is always singled out on this House floor as some egregious program. Now, if we tied the Miller-Miller amendment to the price of candy and forced them to reduce their prices for every penny we reduce the sugar product, then maybe I would understand there is a rationale behind this argument. Now, I associate myself with the words of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), my good friend, who talks about families in his district. Now, some use this program and attack certain families that may be successful and they hold them up as examples of corporate waste. Well, folks, we can use that in almost anything we do on this House floor: single out one individual and say that is the bad actor or the bad apple. We ignore the fact that there are thousands of people in my district. Now, I know when you hear Mark Foley's name, you think of Palm Beach and Worth Avenue. But let me take you to Belle Glade, Clewiston, Pahokee, Canal Point, where people get up every morning and go to the farms and work hard 5, 6 in the morning to harvest a crop that is difficult and is burdensome, but they bring it to market. Then all of a sudden they turn on their TV set to the government that they pay taxes for and to and hear people demeaning their way of life, their product that they produce, and act like somehow, we have some communistic cartel operating under the auspices of the Federal Government.”