[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 11 (Friday, January 26, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              AGRICULTURE

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have another matter on which I wish to 
speak, but I want to thank the Senator from Nebraska for bringing this 
issue to the floor. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we do 
not have a farm bill this year. We passed a farm bill out of the Senate 
Agriculture Committee. It was not what I wanted. But we had our votes, 
we debated it. Yet, we never brought it on the Senate floor to debate 
and vote on it. Never. Here it is, almost February 1996, and farmers in 
our area do not know what to do, how much credit to apply for, or what 
seed to buy, or what kind of program we are going to have this year. 
Then listening to the Senator from Nebraska repeat the rapid changes in 
the national president, or chairman, whatever his position is, of the 
Farm Bureau, is disconcerting at best.
  The Senator from Nebraska, if I understand this right, said that as 
recently as a month ago, the leader of the Farm Bureau was saying in a 
letter that was written publicly, I guess, that the Farm Bureau was in 
favor of a farm program that would have some connection between 
commodity programs and support prices, and that they were in favor of a 
program that would support farmers in years when prices were low, but 
not necessarily when prices are high. Was that just a month ago, I ask 
the Senator?
  Mr. EXON. I believe the date was November 6, maybe 60 days ago. The 
timeframe may be a little over a month. But the Senator is absolutely 
correct, regardless of the date, there was a dramatic change overnight, 
without any explanation from the Farm Bureau of being against the 
program they are now for, and that boggles my mind.
  Mr. HARKIN. I add, on the Agriculture Committee last summer--and I 
forget the exact date--the same individual, the president of the 
American Farm Bureau, was before our committee. Then we were talking 
about the budget, of which the distinguished Senator from Nebraska 
knows a lot, since he is a ranking member on our Budget Committee. I 
was asking him about the budget. I said that the Clinton budget cuts 
about--I think at that time it was around $4 billion, over a period, 
from agriculture, and I think the House budget cut something like $13 
billion or $14 billion from agriculture. I asked him, ``Given those two 
options, which would you prefer? Which would the Farm Bureau be for?'' 
He said they would prefer the Clinton budget.
  Now it seems like there is another big turnaround where they want 
this so-called freedom to farm bill, which, as the Senator said, is 
really the farm welfare bill. I do not know how anyone could ask us to 
pass a bill that would give a Government check to a farmer when prices 
were extremely high in the marketplace. But that is what they are 
asking for. It is a siren song for farmers. If they buy into that, in a 
few years there will not be any farm program or any farm bill at all to 
protect them when prices are low. I thank the Senator for bringing this 
up.

  Mr. EXON. If the Senator will yield for a minute----
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I yield.
  Mr. EXON. My friend has been at the forefront of workable farm 
programs for a long time. I am as mystified as he is. To build upon 
what the Senator just said, I placed in the Record the other day the 
farm welfare program, the so-called Freedom to Farm Act. It would 
provide a massive amount, thousands of dollars a year, to a farmer 
whether or not the farmer even planted, on one hand, and he would get 
the same amount of thousands of dollars--I figured out that a typical 
farm of 500 acres, a corn farmer, at $3.10 a bushel, under the Freedom 
to Farm Act, even though that farmer at 500 acres, 120 bushels return, 
which is somewhere near normal----
  Mr. HARKIN. We get more than that in Iowa.
  Mr. EXON. It would be $186,000 gross income the farmer would make. 
That is gross, not net. But on top of that $186,000, that particular 
farmer would receive a check of about $16,000. Or, I might add, if the 
price of corn went up to $4 a bushel, he would still get the $26,000, 
or at $5 a bushel, the farmer would get the $26,000; or if the farmer 
did not want to do anything and just sit home and watch television and 
surf the channels and not even go out and plant, he still gets $26,000 
from the Federal Government.
  If that is not a form of welfare--as I said in my remarks, once the 
Sun shines in on that, once the members of the Farm Bureau realize and 
recognize that their leadership is trying to convert a farm program 
based on production that supports them when prices are low but does not 
support them when they are getting $3.10 a bushel, there is going to be 
a revolution in the Farm Bureau. There is also going to be, what is 
more serious, a revolution that the Senator from Iowa commented on when 
the people of the United States and the Members of the House of 
Representatives and U.S. Senate recognize that you are throwing that 
kind of money away, regardless of what the price of corn is, even at $5 
a bushel, you get it whether or not you earn it, and that is welfare.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Nebraska. I compliment him. He 
has been a great leader in agriculture. I am going to miss his 
leadership in the years to come on the Senate floor.

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