Alan Simpson: “we work in a funny place. It helps if one knows the facts; it really helps if one understands the facts. But if one…”

“we work in a funny place. It helps if one knows the facts; it really helps if one understands the facts. But if one neither knows nor understands the facts, it causes a great deal of confusion. Mr. Chairman, let me talk about the ``Dear Colleague'' letter that went out. It says this subsidy began during World War II and the Korean War, and obviously it is no longer necessary because the military does not need this wool anymore. This is not the original program for the military in World War II. This is an economic disaster, market loss assistance program, which was put into place. Our agricultural producers that raise sheep and mohair are suffering the same economic consequences as everybody else is in the agricultural industry; and to pick them out and say we are not going to help them, we are not going to have an assistance program for them and we are going to for everybody else is wrong. This is not the old program put into place during the war. Mr. Chairman, the other part of the ``Dear Colleague'' says, ``The average farmer received $44 for this subsidy. The largest factory farms, representing 1 percent of all growers, received 25 percent of the subsidy.'' That is blatantly not true. There are no facts which support that. To support this, the largest producer would have to raise 62,000 sheep. There are no producers that large.”