[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 30, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11162-S11165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FARM CRISIS
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we talk about the farm crisis and whether
Congress will address a farm crisis that is urgent. I just want to make
this point. I watched this week, as did all Americans, this hurricane
that came roaring out of the Caribbean and threatened a fair part of
the southern part of this country. My heart goes out to those people,
worrying about their State, their lives, their property, and everything
that they have saved and built. Then a wind comes along at 100, 125,
and 150 miles an hour, and wipes it away.
There is an emergency declaration, as we always do. Whether it is
floods, fires, or earthquakes, or hurricanes, Congress responds with an
emergency declaration. We say: You are a victim and the rest of the
country wants to help.
A week ago, the President sent down an emergency request to this
Congress dealing with the farm crisis. It wasn't a wind, it wasn't a
fire, it wasn't a flood, it wasn't a hurricane or an earthquake. Family
farmers in this country have been literally devastated by the abject
collapse of farm prices. Grain prices have just collapsed. In my State,
in 1 year net farm income collapsed 98 percent.
Ask yourself: Could anybody on your home street or block or in your
county or your city survive if their net income dropped 98 percent? The
remaining income is 2 percent. These are people who milk the cows, plow
and put seed into the ground, and harvest in the fall. These are people
in this country who raise America's food. They take enormous risks.
They turn their yard light on and with their family have hopes and
dreams to make a living.
There has been a 98 percent collapse of the net farm income in North
Dakota for family farmers. Prices have collapsed. We have the worst
crop disease in this century. This President is right when he says we
have an urgent farm crisis and he sends down an emergency proposal to
deal with this.
Two nights ago, I drove home after a conference committee on the
Appropriations Committee. In that conference meeting, on a party-line
vote, the President was told: We don't care about your emergency
request. We don't think it is quite that important. We are going to
offer up a 4-foot rope to somebody drowning in 10 feet of water, and we
will suggest somehow that we have helped.
I was sorely disappointed. More than that I was angry when I drove
home that night. We meed to understand that these folks who farm
America's land out there, the family farmers, don't ask for very much.
All they ask is for an opportunity to make a living. When farm prices
collapse and when they are hit with crop disease, it is as much a
crisis for them as wind, flood, fire, or tornado. This Congress has a
responsibility to help.
There is a week and a half left in this Congress. If this Congress
doesn't help, thousands and thousands and thousands of farmers and
their families living on the land will lose their livelihood.
I know the Senator from Nebraska has some information about exactly
what the President has proposed and what the stakes are here, State by
State, and what we are trying to do. I yield for a moment to the
Senator from Nebraska for a question and some comments.
Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from North
Dakota, one of the things we had hoped to do with this legislation is
to get consideration similar to the disaster request which we all know
will occur as a result of this hurricane.
We have experienced this before. The Nation comes together as a
country; suddenly we are Americans. A U.S. Senator asked to help the
people in Mississippi, the distinguished majority leader's State. In
Alabama, probably Florida as well, and Louisiana, clearly there are
damages. Here comes a natural disaster. Here comes Hurricane Georges.
Nobody could have prepared for that hurricane. It has destroyed
people's lives, cost them hope. What will happen is, a disaster
declaration will be made, a request will come to the Congress to put
the law of the country on their side, to give them opportunity and hope
again. That is what the law can do at its best; it can give people
hope.
I know this very well, I say to my friend from North Dakota. About a
year and a half in a business, in 1975, a tornado hit Omaha, NE, and I
thought we were pretty much out of business as a result of the tornado
having blown us away. However, I come to find out, 2 days later, that
Mayor Zorinsky, the mayor of Omaha at the time and the man who preceded
me in the U.S. Senate, requested from the President of the United
States, Republican President Gerald Ford, a disaster declaration, and
the law was put on our side. It gave us a chance to build our business
back, gave us a chance to pursue our dream. That is what the law tends
to do. That is what the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts was
talking about earlier. I get hundreds of calls a year, and, more than
any other issue, people say, ``Senator, I don't have any power when I
am dealing with an HMO; can you change the law and give me some power?
Can you help me in dealing with this entity?'' We are trying to change
the law not to create a bureaucracy but to give people some hope.
My expectation will be, when the disaster declaration occurs for
these southern States, it won't be a partisan issue, it won't be
Republicans and Democrats, it will be U.S. Senators and U.S. Members of
the House of Representatives rallying to try to make certain that
people in the southern part of the country that have been damaged by
this disaster are given some hope or given some opportunity.
I say to my friend from North Dakota, I was surprised, as you were,
late Monday night when the House conference on appropriations for
agriculture rejected the President's request for disaster assistance
for the Middle West that has been destroyed and damaged by a natural
disaster, a decline in demand that has produced losses across the board
in agriculture. Still the most important part of our economy, creating
more jobs than any other sector of our economy, and farmers throughout
the bread belt of the United States, the bread basket of the United
States, have lost hope. I was very surprised that it would occur on a
straight party line vote that Members--who will likely say yes if the
President puts down a disaster declaration request for the hurricane--
voted no.
I say to my friend from North Dakota, they say, ``We are reopening
Freedom to Farm; that is the reason I'm to vote no.''
I ask my friend from North Dakota if he is aware of the kind of
income contribution that this disaster declaration will make to our
States. There are many times when I come down here and deal with a
piece of legislation and I ask myself, Will this have an impact on
Nebraska? Will they feel it?--especially when I am talking to Nebraskan
farmers out harvesting right now and who might not have seen what
happened Monday night. Are you sure this will help? In Nebraska, the
difference between what the President asked for and what the House
conference, on a straight party line vote, voted for is $257 million.
Rest assured, if this was a transportation grant, our entire
delegation would be united. There is no Republican or Democrat
differential when we
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are trying to get a $250 million grant for Nebraska. Yet there is a
decision here as a consequence of this Freedom to Farm argument--$257
million worth of income to Nebraska.
I have written the Midwestern Governors' Association and the
Governors in those associations urging them to call their delegation as
a consequence of not just what their State will lose but what their
farmers are going to lose. Two hundred and fifty-seven million dollars'
worth of income on Main Street America, in Main Street Nebraska, will
make a lot of difference not just to farmers but to whether or not the
businesses on Main Street will survive.
In Iowa, the amount of money is $365 million. I have written Governor
Branstad and urged in an immediate letter: ``Governor, weigh in on
this, because you are about to lose $365 million''; to the Governor of
Illinois: ``You are about to lose $341 million''; in Indiana, $182
million; in Kansas, $195 million; in Minnesota, $256 million; in North
Dakota, $115 million; in Ohio, $133 million; in South Dakota, $149
million; in Wisconsin, $80 million.
There are Senators from these Midwestern States who voted no for
ideological reasons, because they don't want to reopen the Freedom to
Farm. I don't understand that. This would make a tremendous difference
in our being able to get through this recession.
The President asked for a disaster declaration. As I said, I have
written all of the Governors in these States putting out an appeal. It
will occur when each one of these Governors are going to come to us and
ask for considerably less, and the beauty of this is that it doesn't go
to the Government, it goes to individual family farmers; it increases
their income and makes it likely to get their operating loans extended
for another year.
I ask my friend if he is aware of the tremendous change in income
pictures that will occur as a consequence of what the President has
asked for and what the conferees turned down. Again, I ask a second
question of my friend from North Dakota. He has had plenty of town hall
meetings, just as I have. I am asked, ``How do we persuade those
easterners to go along with us?'' The problem doesn't appear to be
easterners, or people on the west coast either. Both Senators from
California, both Senators from Connecticut, both Senators from
Maryland, both Senators from Massachusetts, both Senators from Nevada,
both Senators from New Jersey--even though they are not going to
benefit--did precisely what the Senator from North Dakota said earlier.
It is not just important for us to come here and defend our region, our
Nation is in trouble. Our Nation is suffering as a consequence of the
crisis and the disaster occurring in the Midwest right now.
We are going to respond. We are going to vote aye because we know
that we need to pull together as a country. I am sure that it is likely
to be 100-0 when it comes time to decide whether or not we are going to
respond to a disaster in the southern States that has occurred as a
consequence of this hurricane. I come to the floor, Mr. President, to
ask the Senator from North Dakota if he is aware of the tremendous
amount of assistance that each one of these States is going to get, and
if he, as well, hears from his farmers when he goes home, ``How do we
persuade the folks on the east and west coasts that we have a problem
out there that needs to be addressed?''
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska asks an
important question. I want to emphasize again that the President has
sent down an emergency request. He sent down an emergency request and
said what is needed in order to address the farm crisis is $7.9
billion. Now, I will say to my friend, as I indicated when I started
this, when the emergency request comes--and it will--to deal with this
hurricane that just hit, I am going to vote for it. Perhaps other
hurricanes will hit during this season. I have voted for aid for
earthquakes, floods, fires, and hurricanes; and I always will because
this country has a responsibility to do that. I won't think twice about
it. We don't have hurricanes in North Dakota, but when a hurricane hits
in this country, count me as someone voting for the emergency request.
FEMA and others will evaluate what is necessary, and the President
will send us a supplemental emergency request. I have always voted for
them and I will again. It wasn't, as I said, a fire, flood, earthquake,
tornado, or hurricane that caused the crisis that required the
President to send up this emergency request. It was the collapsed
prices and crop disease. It was the worst crop disease of a century
combined with a total collapse of prices.
Now, why do we have some people who ought to be voting in support of
this emergency request reluctant to do so? As the Senator said, it is
ideology. This Congress, a couple years ago, passed something called
the Freedom to Farm bill. I didn't vote for it. I didn't think it was
appropriate. I don't think you will have family farmers in this country
when prices drop off the cliff and you don't have an adequate safety
net for them. If you don't have a price support for them to get across
the price valley, farmers can't make it. The big corporate farms will
get across the valley because they have the financial strength to do
it.
Some may decide that they don't care about family farmers or whether
they exist. They may worship at the altar of a ``free market'' that
doesn't exist in agriculture. They decided that we were going to cut
farmers loose. Even if prices collapse after we pass this Freedom to
Farm bill, they are going to refuse to budge because they have so much
pride in the work they did a couple years ago that they don't want to
admit it was wrong. I am not asking anybody to admit that.
I am just saying that farm prices have collapsed. Wheat prices have
dropped 57 percent since passage of the farm law. North Dakota farmers
lost 98 percent of their net income in one year. The same is true
through much of the Midwest in the farm belt. At this point, shouldn't
Congress stop, look, and listen and say this is a crisis? Does this
country want family farmers with yard lights that light up the hopes
and dreams on the family farm out there in the country? Do they want
family farmers in the future? They should for a lot of social and
economic reasons. Then Congress has to come forward now and address
this issue that the President has recommended with an emergency
request.
The Senator from Nebraska has gone through and talked about what it
means to these States. I want to describe it in slightly different
terms. There is not a Republican or a Democratic way to go broke.
Family farmers don't care about party labels, tickets, or politics.
They care about whether they are going to be able to make it through
the winter?
I talked about a young man named Wyatt the other day. He is a
sophomore in school right now in Stanley, ND. He wrote a letter to me
that brought tears to my eyes. He said, ``My dad is a family farmer.''
After he described what the family was going through, he said, ``My dad
can feed 180 people and he can't feed his own family.'' That describes
better than almost any description we can offer how productive our
family farmers are. Yet, they are being wrung dry by prices that have
collapsed, and they are told that even though they are all-star
producers, somehow they don't matter.
It seems to me that we must, as a Congress, address this issue, and
the point is this: There are those who say let's address this issue by
doing what is called increasing the AMTA payment by some 19 cents a
bushel for a bushel of wheat. That is like walking up to somebody
bleeding to death and holding out a Band-Aid and saying, ``Aren't I
wonderful? Here is a Band-Aid.''
The people proposing it know better. They have told me in private
that it will not address this problem. It won't get those farm families
into the field next spring. Tens of thousands of them will be broke and
forced out of business before they can get into the field next spring
because this is a half-baked solution. It is, as I said, like offering
a 4-foot rope to somebody drowning in 10 feet of water. Let's not have
half-baked solutions. Let's not pole-vault to get over the election.
Let's pass the emergency request of the President to solve this
problem. We need to help these farmers have the hope that they can get
in the field next year, plant a crop, harvest it in the fall, and have
some hope that perhaps prices will rebound and they will be
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able to continue farming in this country in the future. Either we are
going to decide to solve this problem or we are not. That is what this
is about.
First of all, I respect the fact that I come from a political party
that lost. I understand that. I understand winning and losing. I belong
to a political party that doesn't control this Chamber. I understand
that. I am perfectly willing to lose from time to time. We do. In fact,
it is getting habit-forming. But I am not willing to lose quietly on
this issue.
Up until the last 2 minutes of this legislative session, I intend to
be on the floor demanding that this country respond to the urgency of
this matter, just as we would if it were a natural disaster. I will be
demanding that we respond to the hopes and dreams of family farmers
that are going to lose their family farms if we don't act. They will
lose it in the next week, the next month, or the next 4 months, and
they will lose it as sure as I stand here, if we come up with half-
baked solutions.
I know the Senator from Nebraska wants to add to that. Let me just
say again, it is the old silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ear thing. We have
people here resistant to doing what they know in their heart is the
right thing to do because they are worried because it would look like a
180-degree turn on Freedom to Farm. Don't worry about that. Let's
figure out what we can do together, all of us together. Let us do what
we know in our hearts will help the farmers get into the fields next
spring and have some hope that maybe they can make a decent living. If
we do that, we will have done something to strengthen this country and
invest in this country's future.
Then we can then go home with pride and say to those that Thomas
Jefferson described as the ``best Americans,'' those producing our
foodstuffs on the family farms, that we have done something to assure
their future and give them an opportunity.
Our economy is doing better. Inflation is down, unemployment is down,
and the deficit is almost gone. All of those numbers are good and the
country feels better about the economy. We should be able to say to
family farmers that we will not, in these good times, turn a blind eye
to their economic plight. They matter to this country.
I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Nebraska once again.
Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, just briefly, I appreciate very much the
answer the Senator from North Dakota has provided. I want to make it
clear again that I put out an SOS to the Governors of the Midwestern
region, pointing out to them what they are about to lose.
To the Governor of Illinois, $341 million of additional income to the
State of Illinois. Is that going to make every farmer in Illinois
prosperous? No. For all of the free market, plenty of people are still
going to go broke in Illinois even at that. But $341 million, I say to
the Governor. It is the same way in Indiana--$182 million; Iowa, $365
million; Kansas, $195 million; Michigan, $60 million; Minnesota, $250
million; Missouri, $120 million; Nebraska, $250 million; North Dakota,
$115 million; Ohio, $133 million; South Dakota, $150 million;
Wisconsin, $80 million.
I have been a part of the Midwestern Governors Association. During
the agriculture crisis, there was the appeal that we made to Congress.
Our income is declining; our tax revenues are going down; we are not
able to support our schools--many of the things that happen as a
consequence of things beyond our control. We found a positive response
in the Republican Congress in the 1980s. We came and made the appeal.
The Congress responded with the new farm bill which helped us
enormously.
Mr. President, I hope this little presentation or request of the
Governors, as well as our correspondence to the Governors, will produce
a response. I hope and I pray that sometime in the next 10 days we can,
as we most assuredly will--when the majority leader comes to the floor
on behalf of Mississippians, and many other people in the South who
have been damaged by Hurricane Georges, we are not going to walk down
here with a partisan hat and say, ``That is the majority leader, he is
a Republican, and for ideological reasons I am going to say no.'' We
will say yes.
I hope in the next 10 days that we can find a way on this Agriculture
appropriations bill to send this bill back to conference and instruct
the conferees to do the right thing, which is to grant the President's
request for the disaster assistance, which will brighten the days of
not just American farmers but also Americans who understand that our
livelihood depends upon their success and their prosperity. I hope we
are able to take our partisan hats off and deal with this thing as U.S.
Senators and not as Republicans or Democrat Senators.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me finish with just 1 minute. I know
our colleagues are on the floor. They look like they want to do some
serious business.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might just say, the business we are
doing is very serious. While I will not take a position one way or
another on the issue, I would be remiss, and all others would be
remiss, if we did not recollect last year how Senator Dorgan stood the
floor on behalf of his constituents and others with regard to the
devastating floods, and when he spoke just now about his support about
other areas of the country, and I think in the depths of his heart
about those harrowing experiences in which he so ably represented the
citizens of his State.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Warner. Let me just
continue for 1 additional minute, and then turn the floor over to the
Senator.
I don't like having to come here and ratchet away on this issue day
after day. I know some get tired of that, but this literally is about
whether people will survive out on the family farm. I have used some
letters to try to describe their plight. I used a letter the other day
of a woman who described the two jobs she has, the two jobs her husband
has, in addition to raising kids and running the farm, and all the
part-time jobs her kids have. She wrote how they are just flat broke,
out of money and with no capability of making it. The price of hogs is
down. The price of cattle is down. The price of grain has collapsed.
She said to her daughter, ``Let us try to buy you one pair of new jeans
for school.'' And her daughter said, ``No. Mom, I understand we can't
afford that.'' They are just out of money and about to give up hope.
This Congress needs to intervene to do something. We need to say to
our farmers, ``You matter to this country.'' I am not saying we should
prop up some artificial economy for farms. I am saying that these
farmers face monopolies in every direction they turn. They face
monopolies with the grain trade. They face monopolies with the way they
do business with the railroad. They face them with the cattle
slaughter. They face them with the hog and sheep slaughter, and they
face them with the flour millers.
I had charts. I will not put them up again. In every area, the top
three or four companies control 60, 70, and in some cases 80 percent of
all of the activity. And these farmers are told, ``You compete in the
free market.'' Then they have to compete with other countries that
deeply subsidize their products. It is not a free market. It has never
been free. We are the only ones who will come up with these goofy
stories and tell the farmers to go to the grain markets which are
stacked against them. Then when prices collapse, we tell our farmers we
are not going to be there to help. This is the only country that does
that.
This country ought to decide now that it made a mistake putting the
future of family farmers on a free market that doesn't exist, and we
ought to correct it. This President says that we have an emergency
need, and he asked for a supplemental appropriations to meet that
emergency need totaling about $8 billion.
I drove home the other night after the conference committee between
the House and the Senate. That conference, on a party-line vote, said
no; we are not willing to do that. I hope we are going to change that
result in the next week and a half, Mr. President.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have a question for the Senator.
One is, there has been a great deal said by the Senator from North
Dakota about changing the farm bill and reopening the farm bill
relative to taking the caps off the marketing loan rates. It is my
understanding that the existing farm bill has marketing loan provisions
in it; that the real discussion and
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the recommendation from the President has simply been that we raise the
caps of an existing program within the existing farm bill; that, in
fact, the initiative would not involve any significant change in the
farm bill, certainly no more so than accelerating or increasing half
the payments. Will the Senator share a view on that?
Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from South Dakota is absolutely correct. The
farm bill that Congress passed said we would provide a support price
equal to 85 percent of the five-year Olympic average of the average
price of this grain. Then they put an artificial budget restraint on it
even though they promised that formula. Once again, the big print
giveth and the little print taketh away. Despite the promise, they put
an artificial cap on it. That means our support prices don't work. The
promise doesn't offer real help and it doesn't offer protection.
What we have proposed--and the President and others have proposed--is
to get rid of the artificial cap and to give them what the big print
said they would give them and stop this taking away with the little
print. That is all this proposal is about.
Mr. JOHNSON. If I may follow up on that, the Senator from North
Dakota has been one of this body's leaders relative to budget
responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and the overall effort that we
have gone about in bringing the annual Federal budget deficit from $292
billion only 6 years ago to at least a unified budget surplus this
year. I think the Senator from North Dakota was deeply involved in the
crafting of the legislation that set up the framework that allowed us
to bring this country to the current point of much greater fiscal
responsibility.
But it is my understanding, in the context of that debate and setting
up the pay-as-you-go budget mechanisms that were established in the
early 1990s, which have been so successful, that one of the underlying
premises and understanding of that legislation was that there would be
from time to time emergency needs that would be met with the request
from the President with the concurrence of the Congress, and that it is
not inconsistent with the underlying legislation and the progress that
we have made towards reducing the deficit. So long as we use care to
denominate emergencies as only things which are truly emergencies and
are reasonably not foreseeable by either the White House or by the
Congress, the funding of these emergency needs is not inconsistent with
the effort we have made to reduce the deficit and to maintain the
discipline of the 1990 and 1993 budget agreements.
Is that the Senator's recollection relative to the context of this
emergency budget request?
Mr. DORGAN. Yes. The Senator from South Dakota is, of course,
correct. Emergency needs have always been anticipated and expected in
the budget process. When emergency needs are requested, I am someone
who will always vote to fund those emergency needs. It is not outside
of the scope of what we decided to do when we decided to try to get
this country's fiscal house in order. The Senator is correct about
that.
I don't understand why some continue to insist that the funding
doesn't exist for this emergency need. Of course, it does. Of course,
it is a need.
Let me say to the Senator from Virginia, when I said he is here for
serious business, that the implication was not that this isn't. This is
the most serious business for me in this Congress. I know the Senator
from Virginia is involved in defense and a range of other issues that
are also very serious for this country. I very much appreciate his
service and the service of the Senator from Arizona.
The Senator from South Dakota, Senator Johnson, of course, is from a
farm State, just like mine, that is suffering the same kinds of
problems. It is devastating. This crisis is really devastating to not
just the economy of the State but to the families who tonight will go
to bed not knowing whether they are going to be able to hang on to
their family farm. That is the dilemma here, and it is something we
have to face.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Record will reflect that when the
Senator made his comment, this Senator said no, I respect him, it is
serious business, and then reflected on how ably the Senator has
represented his constituents during this crisis.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for such
time as I may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.
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