[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 106 (Thursday, August 4, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            THE TOBACCO PROGRAM IS ABOUT WORK, NOT HANDOUTS

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, Labor Day is just around the corner. For 
most of America, it marks the close of summer and the beginning of the 
new school year. But for one of my constituents, Mattie Mack of 
Brandenburg, KY, it also marks the time when she and her husband begin 
or are in the midst of harvesting their tobacco crop.
  The days between now and when they actually bring their crops to the 
warehouse for sale, will be long, labor intensive, and critical to the 
quality of the tobacco.
  Like the tens of thousands of other tobacco farmers in Kentucky, 
years of experience will guide them in deciding just when to harvest 
the yellowing leaves.
  If it is burley tobacco, first they will drop tobacco sticks down 
each row, then plant after plant, cut the tobacco down with a tomahawk-
style knife, spearing six or so plants to each stick. The cut tobacco 
is left out in the sun for a day or two to wilt until it is ready to be 
housed in special tobacco barns.
  Any of you who have driven through tobacco country have seen curing 
barns with open slats for ventilation. Because curing is such a 
delicate process, the farmer must control temperature, humidity, and 
the rate of curing.
  The tobacco sticks are hung from rails running the length of the 
barn. And like the entire curing process, this is hard labor, yet 
requires a very delicate touch.
  Curing will actually change the chemical and physical properties of 
the leaf, and mistakes can ruin an entire crop. Too much heat can rush 
the process, resulting in low weight and bad color, commonly called 
``houseburn.''
  Each morning, the Macks and their workers pick up where they left off 
the evening before until every plant has been cut and housed.
  Mattie and other Kentucky tobacco farmers will still be at it in 
November, when you and I will be thinking about elections. About this 
time, the tobacco is ``in case.'' It is moist enough to be handled and 
will be brought down, stripped from the stalk, sorted and graded.
  The draining work of hanging a barnful of tobacco in the last hot, 
humid days of summer, will seem light years away to workers pulling it 
back down again in the cold fall nights.
  The last stage, stripping, is considered as much a craft as stitching 
a quilt, with a farmer sorting leaves into bundles by size and quality. 
The tobacco is now ready for market.
  This entire process, which varies depending on the type of tobacco, 
can last throughout the winter. Between field management and labor, 
some estimates put the work level at an average of 250 hours for each 
acre harvested, not to mention the expertise necessary for curing.
  The annual harvest means money to invest in new equipment, to pay the 
mortgage, for health care and college educations.
  In 1964, for Mattie and Bill Mack, it meant owning a farm. Any 
entrepreneur can tell you how difficult it can be to get a bank loan to 
start up your small business. So where the bank failed, tobacco 
succeeded.
  For the past 30 years, that annual harvest has meant even more for 
Mattie and Bill. It meant an education for their own four children, and 
for the 38 foster children they have taken care of over the years. For 
those children, it meant owning a productive future.
  As Mattie already told the House Ways and Means Committee;

       My husband and I raised four children on tobacco. The money 
     from our tobacco crop has paid for their medical care, for 
     their food and for their education.
       We have also raised 38 foster children on our farm. The 
     welfare office always sent the ``problem children'' to us. I 
     discovered that the real problem was that these children did 
     not have anything to do but to get into trouble. So I put 
     them to work on our farm--they cleaned out the barns, they 
     helped put in the tobacco crop, they hoed the tobacco and 
     they helped top the tobacco. After a long days work, those 
     kids ate a good supper, took a shower and went straight to 
     bed. There was no energy left in them to cause trouble.
       My own children and our foster children saved money from 
     tobacco so that they could go to movies or ball games. I 
     always told those kids: When you spend that money, tell 
     people you earned it from tobacco.

  While Mattie's story is certainly special, in many ways she 
represents the average tobacco farmer. Nine out of ten tobacco farmers 
own the farmland they operate, and the majority are smaller than the 
average farm--approximately 94 acres versus 462 acres.
  And as Kentucky farmer and writer, Wendell Berry said, for Mattie and 
the 60,000 other tobacco farm families, ``In tobacco country, the 
choice not to grow tobacco is tantamount to a choice not to farm.''
  According to the Community Farm Alliance:

       Tobacco producing areas of the United States include 21 
     States and Puerto Rico. But over 90 percent of the $2.9 
     billion that American growers earned from tobacco in 1991 
     came from only six States: North Carolina, Kentucky, 
     Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.

  Financially, that means that on average, tobacco can represent as 
much as $57.20 of every $100 in farm cash receipts from crops for a 
Kentucky tobacco farmer.
  And again according to a Kentucky agriculture association:

       Tobacco generated one in 16 jobs in the Commonwealth during 
     1991, or 6.3 percent of the State's total work force. Within 
     one of the State's regions that annually produces high 
     volumes of tobacco, one in five households earned some family 
     income in 1991 by either raising burley tobacco or by leasing 
     their quotas to active growers. * * *

  In Kentucky, that adds up to 100,000 jobs and a billion dollars 
annually in farm income alone. This is multiplied more than threefold 
when you consider the benefits on the rest of the economy.
  And what Mattie and other tobacco farmers will tell you, is that 
despite all the myths about Government subsidizing tobacco, they are 
part of a program that pays its own way.
  In fact, the price support program is probably the most successful 
agriculture program in the United States.
  The program operates under the simple principle that farmers will be 
guaranteed a minimum price for each grade of tobacco produced, in 
exchange for the farmer's commitment to keep the supply in line with 
the demand.
  In practice, that means tobacco falling below the support price is 
placed under loan, but still under the individual farmer's title until 
it is ultimately sold by the cooperatives. While the Government 
supplies the loan, the farmer repays it with interest and all expenses.
  To assure the program is operated at no net cost to the taxpayer, 
farmers and manufacturers are assessed a cent or two per pound to pay 
administrative costs. In addition to the assessment fee, tobacco 
farmers pay inspection and grading fees to cover all of these costs. 
And in an effort to reduce spending for all farm programs in general, 
tobacco farmers pay a budget deficit assessment which is projected to 
generate $25.3 million in fiscal year 1994.
  Mattie Mack will tell you, the tobacco program is about work, not 
handouts.
  Perhaps she put it best when she told the House Ways and Means 
Committee:

       The Bible says that you earn your living by the sweat of 
     your brow and I can tell you that farming tobacco makes you 
     sweat. But farmers are accustomed to hard work. We are also 
     accustomed to dealing with the hardships of nature--we always 
     have to worry about too much rain on our crop, or not enough. 
     But no amount of hard work or resiliency will prepare us for 
     dealing with the man-made hardships that come from 
     Washington. American tobacco farmers cannot survive this 
     threat to our livelihoods.

  Mr. President, I ask that the testimony of Mattie Mack before the 
House Ways and Means Committee be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the testimony was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                        Testimony of Mattie Mack

       Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
       Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am a tobacco farmer from 
     Brandenburg, Kentucky, and I have come here today to share 
     with you my concerns about the proposed tobacco tax to pay 
     for health care reform.
       I want to start by telling you what tobacco means to me and 
     my family.
       I began farming tobacco back in 1963, when my husband 
     brought me to Kentucky to start our own farm. Over the years, 
     we have built up a 100 acre farm on which we raise cattle, 
     corn, hay and 10,000 pounds of tobacco each year.
       Our tobacco crop has been the foundation on which we built 
     our farm and our family. My husband and I raised four 
     children on tobacco. The money from our tobacco crop has paid 
     for their medical care, for their food and for their 
     education.
       We have also raised 38 foster children on our farm. The 
     welfare office always sent the ``problem children'' to us. I 
     discovered that the real problem was that these children did 
     not have anything to do but to get into trouble. So I put 
     them to work on our farm--they cleaned out the barns, they 
     helped put in the tobacco crop, they hoed the tobacco and 
     they helped top the tobacco. After a long days work, those 
     kids ate a good supper, took a shower and went straight to 
     bed. There was no energy left in them to cause trouble.
       My own children and our foster children saved money from 
     tobacco so that they could go to movies or to ball games. I 
     always told those kids: When you spend that money, tell 
     people you earned it from tobacco.
       Tobacco is our livelihood.
       I am here today because our livelihood is being threatened. 
     I cannot express enough how deeply concerned I am about the 
     President's proposal to increase tobacco taxes to pay for 
     health care reform. Farm families like mine stand to suffer a 
     great deal if this proposal becomes a reality.
       I want to tell you that I support the idea of health care 
     reform. When I was young, I studied to be a nurse and worked 
     for a while in the Louisville Children's Hospital. I know 
     first hand that our health care system is in serious need of 
     reform and I congratulate the President for recognizing this 
     fact.
       But the President has proposed a 75 cent per pack cigarette 
     tax as the sole tax to pay for health care reform. This 
     proposal asks farmers, like me, to foot the bill for a system 
     that benefits the entire nation. That is unfair.
       It is unfair to tobacco farmers whose hard work already 
     generates $62,000 per acre in state and federal taxes. It is 
     unfair to black farmers, many of whom grow tobacco, and who 
     historically have lost their farms at a faster rate than 
     white farmers. It is unfair to my home state of Kentucky, 
     which stands to lose over 300 million dollars, and it is 
     unfair to the South as a whole, which stands to lose the very 
     foundation of its economy.
       The Bible says that you earn your living by the sweat of 
     your brow and I can tell you that farming tobacco makes you 
     sweat. But farmers are accustomed to hard work. We are also 
     accustomed to dealing with the hardships of nature--we always 
     have to worry about too much rain on our crop, or not enough. 
     But no amount of hard work or resiliency will prepare us for 
     dealing with the man-made hardships that come from 
     Washington. American tobacco farmers cannot survive this 
     threat to our livelihoods.
       I want to invite President and Mrs. Clinton and all of the 
     members of this committee down to Kentucky to see the people 
     who are working so hard to make ends meet--they are doing it 
     with tobacco. I want them to meet tobacco farmers and their 
     families--face to face--and to learn just how much our crop 
     means to us, and to the South. If they understood that, I am 
     certain they would not insist on this unfair tobacco tax.
       The simple fact is that tobacco farmers cannot afford to 
     pay for health care reform and we should not have to. All 
     Americans stand to benefit from changes in our health care 
     system and all Americans should pay for it. This is the 
     American way and it is the fair way.
       I serve on the credit committee on the Community Farm 
     Alliance which issues small loans to farmers in need. I can 
     tell two things from that experience. There are a lot of 
     farmers out there in rural America who are already fighting 
     day after day to hold on to their land. There will not be 
     enough money in the coffers of the Community Farm Alliance, 
     or in the coffers of any other farm support groups, to help 
     those farmers survive if this unfair tax becomes a reality.
       On behalf of my family and the many tobacco farmers who 
     will never get the opportunity to come here and talk to you, 
     I ask you to work with the President to develop a health care 
     program that is fair to all Americans, including tobacco 
     farmers, tobacco plant workers and southern communities. A 
     tobacco tax increase does not meet this test.
       Thank you.

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