[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S305-S306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST

  Mr. CRAIG. In light of the objections, and that which has just 
transpired, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of a bill I now send to the desk which would 
suspend further implementation of the Permanent Agricultural Law of 
1949, that the bill be read for a third time, passed, and the motion to 
reconsider be laid on the table, without any intervening action or 
debate.
  I now send that legislation to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator 
Dole, Senator Lugar, and Senator Cochran.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object. The procedure the Senator 
from Idaho has just used was one he described about 2 minutes ago as a 
procedure that is unworthy on the floor of the Senate. That is bringing 
a bill that has had no hearings and which I have not received. So I do 
not quite understand the consistency here. But, nonetheless, repealing 
the underlying farm legislation, the Permanent Farm Act of 1949 makes 
no sense under any conditions given the circumstance we are in now.
  We find ourselves in late January with no farm policy except an 
underlying permanent law. The reason I assume that some want to get rid 
of the permanent law--and they would get rid of the permanent law in 
the Freedom to Farm Act--is because they believe in the long term there 
ought not be a farm program, there ought not be a safety net for family 
farmers.
  That is the reason this provision existed in the Freedom to Farm Act. 
It is one of the reasons I opposed the Freedom to Farm Act. I think 
there ought to be a farm program to provide some basic safety net for a 
family out there that is struggling with a few acres. Farm families are 
trying to make a living with twin risks: one, planting a seed that you 
do not know whether it will grow, and, second, if it grows you do not 
know whether you will get a price. Those risks are impossible for 
family farmers to overcome in circumstances where international grain 
prices dip and stay down.
  The proposal being offered is a recipe for deciding we do not need 
family farms, what we need are agrifactories. So I cannot support that. 
I am here because I care about family farms, care about their future, 
and want them to have a decent opportunity to succeed.
  I do not impugn the motives of anyone, and especially the Senator 
from Idaho. I am sure he wants the same thing for family farmers but 
probably finds a different way to achieve that. But I cannot support 
anyone who believes we ought not be left with some basic safety net for 
farm families out there who are struggling against those twin risks. So 
I am constrained to object to the unanimous-consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before the Chair rules, let me explain why 
I presented this legislation. It is detailed in the sense of the titles 
of the law of 1949 that it would repeal. Obviously, in hearing from the 
Secretary of Agriculture, he, by the action of his own President in 
vetoing the Budget Reconciliation Act that laid farm policy out in it, 
is in a tremendous quandary at this moment. He has to implement a very 
cumbersome and costly law, the provisions of the 1949 Agricultural 
Adjustment Act. It does not fit modern-day agriculture.
  I am sure the Senator from North Dakota and I are extremely concerned 
about family farms. We have worked together on that issue on the 
Agriculture Committee of the Senate in an effort to resolve those 
problems. I do not impugn his intention nor do I believe he impugns 
mine. But clearly we need policy. Policy has been created. Policy has 
been passed by this Congress. And policy has been vetoed by this 
President, the very kind of policy that would have created the 
certainty, that would have avoided the kind of frustrations that the 
Senator and I are involved in right now.
  So by action here tonight I have attempted to say that which has been 
worked on should be freestanding legislation, that we ought to have a 
right to vote up or down on it, and that I hope then that the President 
would sign it. It certainly offers the kind of budgetary savings that 
he has offered in the cuts in discretionary spending and at the same 
time it allows the flexibility to avoid the downsizing of purely a 
budget-driven farm policy.
  It allows the flexibility of a market-driven farm policy that 
protects American agriculture, that certainly protects the family farm, 
but also recognizes that they too are businesses that have to compete 
like everybody else in the small business sector of our society. It 
does provide a safety net, but it does set together a plan, a 7-year 
plan that allows them to create and move into the market away from 
simply farming to the program.
  If there is one thing I heard from Idaho agriculture and that I heard 
from Midwestern agriculture, it is ``Give us the flexibility so we 
don't find ourselves totally constrained to a farm program that may not 
be all that profitable.''
  I laughed a bit this afternoon when there were my colleagues coming 
to the floor talking about the freedom to farm as a welfare program. 
When we talk about welfare, one of the phrases that has always gotten 
used is that we provide a safety net to the recipient. Yet the record 
shows that the words ``safety net'' were oftentimes used by my 
colleagues as they decried the idea of a welfare program.
  Offering stability, offering baseline, and at the same time offering 
movement into the market is not welfare. And nobody that is a producer 
and a hard worker out there that I know in my State that is a farmer or 
rancher is going to argue they are a recipient of a 

[[Page S306]]
welfare program, whether it be the Freedom to Farm Act or whether it be 
current policy.
  Mr. President, we need action. This President needs to act. He needs 
to come to the table to work with us on a balanced budget and in so 
doing to be able to craft and move or resolve the issue that we are 
currently involved in that has brought real stalemate to the 
agricultural communities of our country.
  That is why I propounded these two very important unanimous consent 
requests this afternoon, to see if it would not move our President off 
center and allow flexibility, both for the Senate and for our 
Secretary, to get on with the business of telling American agriculture 
what they can expect in the coming crop year.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President. Actually the words ``safety net'' came 
from President Ronald Reagan who described a series of programs that 
represented the safety net, an important one of which is Social 
Security. I do not expect anyone here would make the case that Social 
Security is welfare or that Ronald Reagan meant that Social Security 
was welfare. That is a program workers pay into and at some point get 
some returns when they reach retirement.
  So to use the words ``safety net,'' using the term of President 
Reagan, was to refer to the opportunity to try to provide some help for 
people who need some help through a series of programs, some of which 
might be welfare but many of which were not, including Social Security 
which is not a welfare program and the farm program which was never a 
welfare program.

                          ____________________