[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 29, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11112-S11116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE FARM CRISIS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Iowa wishes to 
join in this discussion, and I am happy to have his input.
  I was driving home last evening after the Agriculture appropriations 
conference committee, and I was once again struck by how some in 
politics here just sort of shrug off some things that are so important. 
I am referring especially to the future of family farming. It is true 
that almost every day you see something around here in which someone 
treats the important things too lightly and then someone treats the 
light things in a far too serious way. It is hard to see that things 
are treated appropriately.
  There is no more urgent need in this country, in my judgment, than to 
address the farm crisis at this time. If we do not act on a timely 
basis, we will not have family farmers left in the Farm Belt given 
their current circumstances.
  Again, this chart shows the price of wheat. This is the income our 
farmers receive for their production. In 1 year in North Dakota, our 
farmers lost 98 percent of all their net income. It was just washed 
away. Their net income was virtually all gone. It was a 98 percent drop 
in their paycheck. Think of it this way: What if this were your salary 
or your wage? Look at what has happened, month after month after month 
after month. This is the gross returns that our farmers receive. The 
price of wheat in our part of the country is down, down, down, way 
down. In fact, the price of wheat has fallen 57 percent since the 
Freedom to Farm law was passed.
  These families are out there living on the land, turning the yard 
light on, illuminating the dreams and hopes of a family that is trying 
to make a go of it. They are discovering they are going broke in record 
numbers and nobody seems to care much because we have people that chant 
on street corners in Washington, DC, ``the marketplace, the 
marketplace, the free market.''
  There is no free market. What a bunch of unmitigated baloney. This is 
no free market. There has never been a free market in agriculture, and 
there will not be one.
  This is picture of a farmer that is being sold out. This is an 
auction sale. All his equipment is being sold. These farmers go broke 
and they have an auction sale. They are told, gee, you didn't make it 
in the free market.
  Let's examine this free market. This farmer plants some wheat in the 
spring and harvests it in the fall, if the farmer has some good luck. 
If it doesn't rain too much, and if it rains enough; if the insects 
don't come and if the crop disease doesn't come; if it doesn't hail; if 
all those things don't occur or do occur, this farmer may or may not 
get a crop. And then this farmer puts that crop, after a hard day's 
harvest, into a truck and puts it on a county road and goes to market. 
He pulls up to an elevator and the elevator manager says, ``You can 
dump that grain in my country elevator.'' Guess what it costs a farmer 
to produce that crop? It costs five dollars a bushel to produce that 
bushel of wheat, and the elevator man says he is prepared to give the 
farmer $2.50. In other words, he is prepared to give only half of what 
it costs the farmer to raise it.
  The elevator man says, ``What I want to do is to put that grain on 
the railroad car and the railroad company will charge you twice what it 
is worth to haul it, and they will haul to the miller who will make a 
record profit grinding it, and they will send it perhaps to a grocery 
manufacturer and they will puff it and pop it and crisp it and flake it 
and they will put it in a bright colored box.'' Then they are going to 
ship it to the grocery store shelf and somebody out there is going to 
come and buy it in Pittsburgh, or Fargo, or Los Angeles. These 
consumers are going to pay $4 a box for a bright-colored box of wheat 
that is puffed up and called puffed wheat now. The person who put the 
puff in it is making record profits, the person who hauled it on the 
railroad car is making record profits, and the miller is making record 
profits. Everybody is making record profits, except the farmers who got 
their hands dirty, gassed up the tractor, plowed the ground, seeded and 
fertilized the ground, harvested the crop, and hauled it to market. 
They are going broke in record numbers. Yet, nobody seems to care a 
bit.

  Last night, in that conference committee, they were stone deaf to a 
proposal by this President who said we need $8 billion in emergency 
aid, and we need it now if we are going to solve this farm crisis. They 
rejected that on a straight party-line vote. It is not that there is 
not enough money. They think they have enough to give an $80 billion 
tax cut. The sky is the limit there. But how about another $4 billion 
for family farmers? That is what we were talking about last night. We 
were asking just another $4 billion more to save family farmers. They 
have $80 billion for a tax cut, but they don't have another $4 billion 
to invest in the lives of these people, who I think are the salt of the 
Earth. Family farmers are the ultimate risk-takers.
  Let me mention one more point about this free market. I talked about 
the monopoly railroads that haul the grain and the monopoly grain trade 
firms. Wherever you look, in every direction our farmers face a 
monopoly. It doesn't matter which way they turn. Let's say we have a 
cow out here. They are raising wheat, corn, soybeans, and they are 
raising some cows. They are going to send the cow to market. But are 
they going to make money off that cow? I don't think so, because that 
cow is going to be sold into a monopoly. Four firms control over 80 
percent of all the slaughter of beef cattle in this country. That 
farmer markets up to a monopoly. That farmer moves the grain to a 
monopoly railroad and markets into a monopoly grain trade.
  Then we have these half-baked economists who talk about the free 
market. Harry Truman used to say, ``Give me a one-armed economist. I'm 
sick and tired hearing `on this hand' and `on the other hand.''' I am 
not sure how many economists we have around here talking about the free 
market. Maybe we ought to put a robot out on the street corner and let 
him chant, ``There is no free market here.''
  In every direction, the farmer is getting fleeced. This Congress, for 
a change, needs to say we are going to be on the side of the ultimate 
producers in this country, who are the economic all-stars in this 
country. If we don't, we won't have any family farmers left.
  I had a young boy named Wyatt write to me. He is a sophomore at a 
school in Stanley, ND. The other day in a letter to me, he said, ``I am 
a 15-year-old farm boy. My dad can feed 180 people, but he can't feed 
his own family.'' That says something about family farming. It says how 
productive they are, how important they are, how incredible they are as 
producers, and what they have to face in a market controlled by 
economic giants that pillage and prey on these family farmers every day 
and in every way. And, they do it in such a way that family farmers 
can't make a living.
  This Government and this Congress, has to decide whether we are going 
to stand up for these people or not. We are going to force another vote 
on the floor of the Senate. We have had two votes to get a decent 
support price, and we lost by a handful each time. But for those who 
don't want to vote on this, I say: Brace yourself, because you are 
going to have to vote again. We are not

[[Page S11113]]

going to quit. Family farmers would not expect us to quit. They don't 
quit and we are not going to quit them. We are going to vote on this 
again until we get a result that says this Congress stands with family 
farmers and that this Congress cares about the future of farm families.
  I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Iowa, if he has a 
question.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding for a 
question. First of all, I thank the Senator for a very eloquent and 
forceful statement on what is happening out there and, really, the 
shame of this Congress in not addressing it.
  As I look at your charts here and see the free-fall in the price of 
wheat over the last couple of years--since the 1996 so-called Freedom 
to Farm bill was passed--I look at that and I wonder what happened to 
the price of bread. Has that come down? What about all the wheat 
products, like pasta and all the things into which wheat goes? I ask 
the Senator, what happened? Are the consumers making out on this and 
getting a cut-rate deal at the grocery store?
  Mr. DORGAN. No, no. This is about corporate profits, not about 
advantages to consumers at the disadvantage of farmers. What is taken 
out of the hide of family farmers in collapsed prices doesn't go into 
the pockets of consumers through cheaper bread prices. Take a look at 
the price of a loaf of bread when the price of wheat peaked about 2\1/
2\ years ago. Then go to your grocery store and look at the price of a 
loaf of bread today. Ask yourself, gee, if farmers suffered a nearly 
60-percent drop in the price for wheat, what happened to the price of a 
loaf of bread? The answer is that somebody in between is taking more 
profit. But the consumer hasn't gotten the benefit. This country always 
had a cheap food policy. Will it have a policy that protects the basic 
income requirements of family farmers?
  Mr. HARKIN. One of my neighbors keeps asking me. He said, ``I hear 
about all these farm problems.'' He lives in a city. He said, ``I can't 
understand, if the farmers aren't making money, how come I'm not seeing 
lower prices in the store?'' They don't understand that. I think the 
Senator from North Dakota pointed out that consumers aren't seeing it 
in the store. The fact is that bread has gone up in the last couple 
years, not down. The large grain companies, the shippers, the 
monopolies are reaping a windfall. They are buying these products from 
the farmer, not at wholesale, but at fire sale prices.
  In listening to the Senator, I could not help but remember what John 
Kennedy said in Sioux City, IA, when he was running for President in 
1960. He made the statement: ``The farmer is the only person who buys 
retail, sells wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.'' Well, now 
today farmers aren't even selling wholesale. They are selling at fire 
sale prices--not only wheat, but corn and soybeans. And pork prices, 
this year, are probably going to average their lowest since 1974. They 
are working at extremely low cattle prices. So all across the 
agricultural sector, we have a terrible crisis.
  Now, as the Senator pointed out again last night in our conference 
committee, when we met to try to do something, to answer this crisis 
and need in rural America, we were told that, no, we would not do it, 
we can only do a little bit. I liken last night to somebody dying of 
thirst and you give them a thimbleful of water. That is what those who 
we were in conference with last night basically did to the farmers. 
They slapped them in the face and gave them a thimbleful of water when 
they are dying of thirst. It is a shame.
  It came down to a straight party-line vote. It is very unfortunate 
that it had to be on a party-line basis when this issue begs for 
nonpartisanship and bipartisanship. Yet, it has evolved into a partisan 
situation. That is a real shame. I think it is a shame that our 
colleagues voted against any meaningful help. As the Senator pointed 
out, we had about a $3 billion difference. In other words, for $3 
billion, we could have really met the needs of farmers all over this 
country--not only the farmers in Iowa and North Dakota, but the farmers 
in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and all over the country. Farmers who 
are either suffering from the fall in prices, or because they have had 
a drought, or floods, or disease. All of these things have piled up 
this year to really put agriculture in dire straits.
  No, they don't have the money for that, as the Senator pointed out, 
but they do have money for an $80 billion tax cut.
  I am sure the Senator would agree with me. I met with farmers in Iowa 
not too long ago and I talked about this tax cut. I said, ``Who do you 
think is going to get it? I will give you a hint: It isn't you.'' They 
are not going to get it; it is going to go to upper-income people. We 
know that. But for $3 billion we could have really helped pull these 
farmers out. And we still can if we have the will.
  I ask the Senator from North Dakota in my closing question--and I 
thank him again for his strong support for the American farmer, the 
family farmer, and for always being front and center here on the floor 
and in our committee meetings, for fighting for those family farmers. 
Lord knows, we don't have too many people around here fighting for them 
anymore. But the strength and the passion and courage of the Senator 
from North Dakota has gone a long way toward at least helping us get 
this far, getting something through to help our farmers--even though it 
is not going to be enough to save them, unless we can have some more 
action on the floor. The Senator has indicated that when that bill 
comes back, we are going to have more action on this floor. We are not 
going to go away quietly. I join with the Senator from North Dakota in 
saying that. We are not going to go away quietly. We are going to be 
here until the last bell rings of this Congress to do everything we can 
to help those family farmers.

  I thank the Senator from North Dakota again for his eloquent remarks 
and for his steadfastness in standing up for those who really are the 
backbone of this country, those who have worked hard, produced our food 
and fiber and the products they have raised in our export channels have 
been the only thing that has kept our balance of payments and our 
balance of trade with other countries at least somewhat positive. It 
has only been agriculture. It hasn't been anything else, just 
agriculture. And yet to let them go down the drain because of monopoly 
practices I think is just a shame, and I think it is something we have 
to address.
  I thank the Senator from North Dakota for, again, leading the fight.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa. He and I 
and others from the farm belt feel very strongly about this issue 
because it is not just some cerebral discussion about economic theory. 
It is about thousands and thousands of people who have had dreams and 
hopes of continuing to operate their family farm and raising their 
family out in the country and tilling the soil and producing food. It 
is about whether they are going to be able to continue to do that. This 
isn't a bluff nor is this crying wolf.
  What has happened in my State is the complete collapse of grain 
prices coupled with the worst crop disease in a century. It has just 
put thousands of family farmers in a position where they are not going 
to be able to continue to farm.
  I would like to read just a couple of letters. This one is from a 
young man named Eric. He graduated from high school 10 years ago. He is 
a farmer. His family and his wife's family were farmers. Eric wrote to 
me and he said, ``When I started out, I knew it wasn't going to be 
easy. The only support either family, mine or my wife's, was able to 
afford was advice and hard work.'' They could not afford more support 
than that.
  He goes on to say, ``In our area we have been hit with heavy rains 
the past 5 years which has greatly reduced the yield of our crops, and 
caused crop disease. One of those years we had to burn the crop off of 
the fields so it would be able to dry enough to farm the following 
year.'' That, he said, was like ``burning dreams.''
  He is raising cattle, crops, hogs. He writes, ``As of this fall we 
decided that we would have to reduce the number of acres we farm. I am 
watching my hopes and dreams fade away as I reduce these acres. Yet, I 
work 16 plus hours a day to try to keep the farm going again for 
another year.''

[[Page S11114]]

  He adds, ``My wife works about 55 hours a week just to try to pay 
household bills. She works off the farm and then comes home and does 
the farm work as well. At one time I had hopes of being able to pass 
this farm down to the next generation. Now the only hope I have is that 
we can just continue.''
  This is a letter I received the other day from Barbara. Barbara says, 
``I have been married for 19 years. I have two sons. It was our dream, 
my dream and my husband's that one day this farm of ours would belong 
to our boys.''
  Then she describes the way they have tried to make ends meet and 
can't. ``My husband not only farms, he works out in the winter and 
finds as many part-time jobs in the summer as he can to help supplement 
our income. We raise hogs to help supplement the farming also. I work 
in the county school system during the school year. I am a cook in the 
elementary school. I also drive a bus some evenings after working in 
the cafeteria. I also work as part-time help in our local hospital and 
dental office. I'm an emergency medical technician and, my husband is a 
firefighter with the local fire district.''
  She writes, ``Our oldest son is 17 and works part-time during the 
school year and this past summer went on part of a run with a custom 
harvesting crew to make some money. Our youngest son has a job mowing 
cemeteries for our local church and helps on the farm. He is 15.''
  ``As you can see we have full schedules which don't allow us much in 
the form of extra cash or time for vacation or leisure. The part I 
can't understand,'' Barbara writes, ``is why after working 17 or 18 
hours a day we can't make enough to live on. My husband went to the 
elevator yesterday to haul in some wheat to pay our expenses for the 
coming month. He was told he would get $1.82 a bushel for the wheat.''
  By the way, she doesn't write this, but USDA says it costs them at 
least $4.75 a bushel to raise that. Her husband goes to the elevator 
and is told that he will be paid $1.82 a bushel. ``You tell me,'' she 
writes, ``how we are supposed to pay our bills with these prices?
  She said, ``A couple of weeks ago, our youngest son came to me and he 
asked if he could talk to me. I said yes. And he asked if we would be 
mad at him if he chose not to farm after he finished school. He didn't 
want his dad or grandfather to be upset with him. He has seen how much 
work it is and how little the family is getting out of it, but still 
feels the love of the land and pride in continuing another generation 
of farmers.''
  This young boy asks if they would be angry if he doesn't try it. She 
says, ``I have come to fear that my generation is the last, if we 
survive. It's hard to tell your children that you really wish they 
would not come back to farming because there's no future there for 
them.''
  Mr. President, these are two letters from Eric and Barbara, a farmer 
and farm wife, both struggling out there, trying to make a living with 
collapsed prices and crop disease and a farm crisis that gives these 
folks depression-era prices for their crops.
  What makes me so angry about all this is in thinking about it in 
driving home last night after the conference committee. What makes me 
so angry is there is this kind of blithe attitude about it here. It is 
an attitude that dismisses this crisis and says: Well, this is just 
another day; this is just another problem; this is just another group 
of Americans who want something.
  These people don't want anything special. But they don't want to be 
turned loose in a circumstance where they are told you compete in a 
free market and the market isn't free. Everything that they do in this 
economic system means that someone is preying upon them, and that 
someone is taking money out of their pockets unfairly. Then the 
Congress somehow says we don't have the time to help; we don't have the 
resources to help; you are too small to matter; all we care about are 
those who are too big to fail.
  And as I said when I started, I drove home last night thinking about 
the story I read about a $100 billion liability outfit that gets in 
trouble and the Federal Reserve Board apparently convenes a meeting of 
bankers. They get a bunch of aspirin together and fluff up the pillows 
and say, ``Gee, can't we make you comfortable. We sure wouldn't want 
you to fail. You are too big to fail.'' They got 20-some banks in that 
circumstance. I guess we got other hedge funds out there and a whole 
series of speculators as well.
  But what about these folks? What about the folks who Congress says 
are too small to matter. These are the folks who day after day are 
holding auction sales, standing around watching their farm implements 
and watching their personal possessions being auctioned off because 
they can't make a living. It is not because they are not good at what 
they do. They are the best in the world. There is nobody in the world 
who measures up. Nobody. Not even close. Yet this economic system is 
stacked against them, stacked against them in a way that is almost 
criminal.
  You know what we ought to do?
  These folks face a railroad that hauls their grain and charges them 
double the price they ought to be charged, and they market that grain 
up through a grain trade in which there are just a few companies. That 
is not free enterprise. And then they send their cattle up where you 
have four companies controlling over 80 percent of the slaughter.
  You know what we ought to do? We ought to put an independent counsel 
on all those issues. How about an independent counsel investigating the 
marketing of cattle, and looking into the four companies that control 
the slaughter of over 80 percent of the cattle in this country.
  How about an independent counsel tracking down railroad prices on 
behalf of family farmers to see if they are fair? How about an 
independent counsel looking at the grain trade to see whether this is 
truly a fair market?
  I could go on at great length about that. What about an investigation 
on behalf of these folks that says to them we are intending that you 
have a fair deal, and that you have a fair opportunity to make a 
living. And, if you don't, we are going to help. That is part of what 
yesterday was about. It is part of what last night's conference 
committee was about when, unfortunately, on a party-line vote the folks 
in that committee said, no, we can't afford it; we don't have any 
money.
  The President says, I need $8 billion in emergency aid to deal with 
the farm crisis. The same people who said we have $80 billion to 
provide a new tax cut said we don't have $8 billion above the current 
budget level to meet the President's request to deal with the farm 
crisis.
  I am telling you, that is a misplaced sense of priorities. We have 
had two votes in the Senate on this issue of providing a decent support 
price. When I say ``decent,'' this is very modest. It is much more 
modest than I think is necessary. But even at that, we lost each of 
those votes by a handful.
  I say to those who were in the conference committee last night, who 
voted against standing up for family farmers, you are going to vote 
again. One way or the other, you are going to vote again in the U.S. 
Senate, and the vote is going to be on this question: Are you willing 
to stand up and support family farming in times of crisis? When prices 
collapse and you have this price valley, and those family farms simply 
fall through the cracks, are you willing to stand and say, ``Let us 
build a bridge across that valley,'' or do you say that family farmers 
don't matter?
  Are you willing to say that it doesn't matter that corporate 
agrifactories will farm America from California to Maine? Will big 
corporate agrifactories get up in the morning, put on their Big Ben 
coveralls and milk 3,500 cows at one lick, because that is corporate 
agrifactories? Or will they plow their tractors as far as they can go 
on a tank of gas and then turn around and plow back? Do you think it 
will benefit this country to turn out all the farm yard lights in the 
country and say to these families, ``You don't matter; we will replace 
you with a big agrifactory''? This country will have lost something 
very important and it will have done so because this Congress said that 
they don't matter. If they do that, this Congress will have to answer 
to a lot of the American people about their sense of priorities.
  This has become a legislative landfill in recent months. I can go 
down on two hands the list of important things we should have done that 
have been taken

[[Page S11115]]

out in the country and covered over with dirt, because we have too many 
people in here saying, ``No, you can't do the important issues; we have 
to track around chasing the tail of unimportant issues.''
  This is one issue that a number of us from farm country are not going 
to let be sent out to some legislative landfill and be covered up. One 
way or another, we are going to push and fight and scrap on behalf of 
those families who still have their hopes and dreams to make a living 
as family farmers. We are going to push and fight to the end to get a 
decent, kinder program out of this country that will say to family 
farmers in this country, ``You matter; you matter to this country and 
its future.''
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, very briefly, I thank my colleague from 
North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, for once again standing up and speaking 
out on behalf of the farm families of our State and farm families all 
across the country, because these are desperate times.
  In North Dakota, from 1996 to 1997, farm income declined 98 percent. 
That is according to the Government's own figures. That is a disaster 
by any definition.
  Last night, I was absolutely shocked to learn our Republican 
colleagues killed each and every attempt to strengthen the financial 
aid package for farmers. It makes me wonder what part of disaster they 
don't understand.
  We have the lowest prices for farm commodities in 50 years. That is 
right, the lowest prices in 50 years. Combined with that, we have a 
whole series of natural disasters all across the country, including our 
State, where a terrible fungus called scab is loose in the fields that 
dramatically reduces production and that which is produced is 
discounted when the farmer takes it to the elevator to sell it. The 
result is a tremendous cash flow crunch on our farmers, forcing 
thousands of them off the land. We have record farm auctions. I have 
bankers stopping me in every town I go to and saying, ``Senator, there 
is a disaster occurring. There is something radically wrong. What is 
being done?''
  Last night, our Republican colleagues said, ``Well, what we propose 
to do is provide a dime and three pennies for every bushel of wheat and 
other grains.'' A dime and three pennies. Frankly, that is worse than a 
Band-Aid. A Band-Aid at least covers a wound. If that is going to be 
the answer, then we might just as well say that the farm policy coming 
from our friends is a policy of liquidation; a policy that says to 
family farmers, ``You're done; you might as well sell out, because this 
country does not value what you do.''
  Mr. President, this can't be the way it ends. We have a disastrous 
farm policy. I have said our farmers are being hit by a triple whammy 
of bad prices, bad weather and bad policy. We can't control the 
weather, we can't control the prices, but we can do something about 
farm policy, and we have an obligation to do so.
  When our colleagues are saying we ought to cut taxes by $80 billion 
and then turn around and say, ``But we can't add $3 billion to this 
package to provide financial support for family farmers,'' they have 
described their priorities very clearly. Unfortunately, the conclusion 
is, family farmers are left out. They are being told, ``Forget it, you 
don't matter.'' That is just unacceptable. There is going to be a 
fight. We are not going to go quietly in the night as thousands of farm 
families are shoved off the land. That cannot be an acceptable 
conclusion to this year's legislative business.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. There are some who don't want to take the time to deal 
with important issues. This is, I think, one of the most important 
issues. We just dealt with the Vacancies Act on judicial nominations. 
How does the Senator view the farm crisis versus the judicial Vacancies 
Act we spent some time debating?
  Mr. CONRAD. I think back to the Interior appropriations bill. I don't 
know how many days that was on the floor here. It was day after day 
after day. In fact, when I look back on the last several months, it is 
hard for me to recall our dealing with anything of great significance. 
In fact, there have been long periods where nothing was dealt with on 
the floor, and then we are told, ``Well, the future of family farmers 
that hangs in the balance, there is just not enough time to deal with 
that, not enough resources to deal with it.''
  Interestingly enough, our competitors don't have that view. The 
Europeans, who are our major competitors, are spending $50 billion a 
year to support their producers. We spend $5 billion, and we wonder why 
we are losing the fight. We would never do this in a military 
confrontation, but in a trade confrontation we seem to think it is fine 
to say to our farmers, ``Well, you go out there and compete against the 
French farmer and the German farmer, and while your at it, go take on 
the French Government and the German Government as well.'' That is not 
a fair fight.
  I say to my colleague, it seems to me as though we have the time to 
make a difference in the lives of literally thousands of farm families 
all across America who are facing a financial disaster. This isn't some 
kind of downturn, this is a cliff, and thousands of farmers are being 
pushed right off it.
  The question is, What are we going to do? Are we going to do nothing 
or next to nothing, or are we going to fight back? Are we going to say 
to the Europeans, ``No, we're not going to accept a circumstance in 
which you simply buy these markets, you go out there and because you 
have so many more resources,'' because somehow in Europe they have 
decided they want people out across the land, that that is good social 
policy.
  Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield for one additional point.
  Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. We have been talking about financial modernization. It 
seems to me the farm crisis is more important than that. That is ahead 
of us. The Internet tax freedom bill, it seems to me the farm crisis is 
more important than that. We apparently are going to take that up.
  I mentioned when I began this discussion the juxtaposition of a hedge 
fund nearly going broke on Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Board 
getting so concerned that they convened the bankers and said, ``Gee, 
can't we help those people; prop up their pillow, help them get back to 
bed, give them a nap and get them some strength again?''
  And it is interesting to me that, in fact, the Fed even signaled when 
that was going on, they were going to reduce interest rates. So today, 
lo and behold, they lowered interest rates. It is the ``too big to 
fail'' thing.
  It reminded me of what Will Rogers once said. He said, ``You know, if 
one day all the lawyers on Wall Street failed to show up for work, 
wouldn't anybody miss lunch. But if all the cows in America failed to 
show up to the barn to get milked, then we would have a problem.'' What 
Will Rogers was trying to say in a humorous way is ``What really 
matters in this country is what we produce.'' And there is no more all-
star producer in America than the family farmer.
  Yet this country has an economic system that says to them, ``There's 
no connection between effort and reward. You make the effort. You go 
broke.'' And that is what is wrong with this system. This farm bill of 
ours does not work. Everybody ought to now be willing to confess that 
and decide that this farm bill does not work and we want to save family 
farmers. Let us join together in a bipartisan way to make something 
happen that really will work to save family farmers.
  Mr. CONRAD. My colleague is precisely right. It will be a tragedy for 
this country if we let this circumstance unfold. The hard reality is if 
we fail to act and act decisively, literally thousands of family 
farmers are going to be pushed out of business. And they are not coming 
back.
  I just went to a meeting in my State--one of the major farm 
organizations--and I stood at the back of the room. It was so striking 
because so many of the heads sitting in the chairs in front of me were 
white haired. The farmers of this country are aging and aging 
dramatically. There were hardly any young people in the room.

[[Page S11116]]

  It is easy to understand why, because, as Senator Dorgan read from 
the letters of young people, they were saying to their parents, ``Gee, 
will you hold it against me if I don't go into farming?'' Well, it is 
pretty hard to justify going into farming. It is pretty hard to justify 
staying on the family farm because we, as a country, have said, as a 
matter of policy, ``We're not going to be there for you.'' Our 
competitors are going to spend $50 billion a year supporting their 
producers, and we are going to spend one-tenth as much. So we say, 
``You go into the fight, but you go unarmed.''
  Mr. President, we can do better than that. America is better than 
that. And the loss to this country will be incalculable if we push an 
entire generation of farmers off the land. I know that at some point we 
will wake up and we will say, ``Gee, we have a program to get people 
back out there.'' And what will it cost us then, as we realize it makes 
no sense to push everybody into the cities of America, that instead we 
ought to have people spread out across the land?
  But right now we are headed on a collision course with economic 
reality. And that reality is: Our farmers are at such a disadvantage 
that they cannot survive. So that is the question that is before the 
body tonight. And that is the question that is going to be before the 
body tomorrow. Are we going to do something to help these family 
farmers through this valley of extraordinarily low prices and natural 
disasters or are we just going to let them go? I pray that we respond 
and help family farm agriculture survive in this country. It is right 
at the heart of what makes this country strong.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The Senator from New Mexico.

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