David Obey: “I simply want to say that I find a couple of the last statements bordering on jokes. Just because one repeats a mistake…”

“I simply want to say that I find a couple of the last statements bordering on jokes. Just because one repeats a mistake 50 times does not make it a fact. And the fact is that this does not do anything to cut crop insurance. It cuts crop insurance commissions. Now when they passed a freedom to farm act, I would say to our friends on the other side of the aisle, they did not pass a freedom to milk the farmers act. And neither did they pass a bill that allowed salesmen to milk the taxpayers. What we are trying to do is to simply meet our primary responsibility to farmers to see to it that programs which we have on the books for their assistance are defensible so that demagogs do not rip them up. And the fact is that when insurance agents are going around charging skyboxes at baseball and football stadiums to the taxpayer, that discredits the entire program. And that kind of nonsense has to stop, and that is what we are attempting to do. It so happens to be that the USDA and the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Agriculture Department both agree with the Obey amendment because they know that in the long run nothing protects farmers more than protecting the integrity of programs that are supposed to serve farmers.”