Steven Gunderson: “Mr. Chairman, Members, tonight we bring forth a comprehensive, the most comprehensive, reform of the dairy program in 45…”

“Mr. Chairman, Members, tonight we bring forth a comprehensive, the most comprehensive, reform of the dairy program in 45 years. We bring it forth on a bipartisan basis, and we bring it forth as a national compromise. I find it rather fascinating. The gentleman from New York was complaining about some of the elements of the compromise that were the exact elements of the compromise that he asked for earlier in these negotiations, but I guess accuracy does not have a lot to do with what we are dealing with tonight here anyway. Let us look at facts, if we can, for just a second. We want to talk about who saves the taxpayers more. CBO says we save the taxpayers more, we save $770 million versus only $350 million to CCC under their program. That is over $400 million more that we save than they do. Second, which one does more for dairy farmer income? Let us take a look. Again CBO, USDA numbers. What are they? We increased dairy farmers' income over 7 years by $3.4 billion. The Solomon amendment cuts those same New York dairy farmers he is trying to save, it cuts their income by $4 billion over that same 7-year period; not our numbers, USDA numbers.”