[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S334-S335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SUMMARY OF EVENTS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened with interest to my colleague 
from Iowa and I want to make a couple of rejoinders and a couple of 
other additional comments.
  I was on the floor yesterday, as a matter of fact. So, I well 
understand what happened yesterday. The Senator from Idaho brought a 
bill to the floor by unanimous consent to take the so-called Freedom To 
Farm Act out of the budget reconciliation bill and deem it passed by 
itself on the floor. I objected to that.
  I then offered a unanimous-consent request on the floor to take the 
piece of legislation I had introduced extending the current farm 
program for 1 year. It would also provide enormous planting flexibility 
so farmers can plant any crop within their base acres, and provide some 
forgiveness of the advance deficiency agreement. And, the majority 
party objected to that.
  Then the majority party, by the Senator from Idaho, offered a 
unanimous-consent request to abolish the 1949 Permanent Farm Act. I do 
not understand why the majority party would put itself in a position of 
coming to the floor of the Senate to say ``We would like to go on 
record saying we want no farm policy.'' I puzzled over that last 
evening, wondering why would the majority party be out here with that 
message? Why would they say, ``If we cannot get the Freedom To Farm 
Act, we want nothing. We want to abolish the 1949 act.''
  Then I offered a second unanimous-consent request in which I said, 
``Well, if you do not agree with extending the program for one year 
with the other provisions I included, then would you at least agree 
with forgiving the advance deficiency payments, because you said you 
agreed with that. I will make a unanimous-consent request that we bring 
that up and deem that to have passed.'' The majority party objected to 
that. So that is what happened yesterday.
  This is not just a chapter. This is a novel. One has to read all the 
chapters to understand the story line of this novel. This is not, 
however, entertainment reading for farmers in our country.
  We are at the end of January. Congress has a responsibility to have a 
farm program and we do not have one. Some might say, ``Well, you do not 
have one because you would not swallow what we tried to shove down 
somebody's throat.'' I heard from others yesterday, ``Well, gee, nobody 
tried to shove anything down anybody's throat.''
  The Senator from Alabama is on the committee. There was not a markup 
in which there was full discussion. We should have all reasoned 
together in a bipartisan way the way we have always done it on a 5-year 
farm bill. There was none of that.
  There was not a bipartisan approach to a farm bill. It was, ``Here it 
is, swallow it or leave it. And, by the way, we will put it into the 
budget reconciliation bill for the first time in history.'' We have 
never done that before. The strategy was, ``That is where we will put 
it and we know the President will veto the bill. Then after he vetoes 
it we will feign surprise that we do not have a farm policy.''
  I am puzzled. We must on every day in every way decide to give 
farmers an answer. What will the policy be? We must find a way to agree 
on common elements. I think there are areas where we have common 
agreement. We agree with substantial flexibility. We agree on that. 
There are a number of areas we agree. Forgiveness on some of the 
advance deficiencies.
  Farmers do not have the luxury of saying, ``It is spring. The sun is 
shining. We have just had some rain but I decided to defer my planting 
until July.''
  Congress ought not have the luxury of deciding it can wait until 
Friday, the next Friday, or the next spring to decide what the farm 
policy ought to be. If farmers do not have the luxury not to plant or 
harvest, we ought not have the luxury to decide not to give farmers an 
answer of what the farm policy ought to be in this country.
  We have a responsibility to pass a 5-year farm plan. It has not been 
done. Somebody said, ``Well, but we did it.'' Yes, it was stuck into a 
reconciliation bill. But, the fact is it did not get passed. Everybody 
knew it would not get signed by the President and so we are left with 
nothing.
  It seems to me we have a responsibility now to make something out of 
this mess. All of us from farm country need to come together here. This 
is not a joke or a laughing matter or amusing to any farmer in this 
country. They want to know under what conditions will they plant this 
spring.
  Farmers face twin risks of planting a seed, not knowing whether it 
will grow, and then, if it grows, not knowing whether there will be a 
price at the marketplace. Family size farms wash away when 
international prices go down and stay down. That is why we have a 
safety net. That safety net is what we should be debating here in this 
Congress. Farmers deserve an answer, and we are going to keep pushing 
day after day to give them an answer. 

[[Page S335]]

  Let me comment on the $6 billion my colleague mentioned. It is simply 
not the case that people over here say we do not want to spend enough 
on agriculture. That is not the case. My colleague knows that is not 
the case. The fact is, we are not debating the baseline for the 7-year 
period on agriculture. If we were debating that, the debate on the 
baseline is that the majority party's budget cut far more than twice as 
much from the baseline than the budget cuts that we had offered. If we 
are going to debate baselines, that is what we ought to debate. And I 
would be glad to do that, but I also want to go on to another brief 
subject.

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