[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H9510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        BUDGET POLICY IN THE CONGRESS AND AMERICA'S FARM ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MINGE. Mr. Speaker, this evening, I rise to address two subjects 
which I think are of great importance to our Nation and deserve 
emphasis here on the floor of the House.
  The first is the question of our budget policy in Congress and in the 
United States. The new Federal fiscal year started October 1, 1998. We 
are 5 days into the new fiscal year. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we do 
not have a budget resolution in place for this fiscal year to provide 
guidance to Congress. Unfortunately, the deadline for adopting a 
concurrent budget resolution was April 15, 1998, almost 6 months ago.
  Unfortunately, we have had a failure of leadership in Congress when 
it comes to budget policy. We essentially have punted. We are talking 
about the budget being balanced. I submit that is because we do not 
understand the budget laws that we have adopted in this body. The 
budget is not balanced. We are still depending on at least $30 billion 
in the Social Security Trust Fund to offset other Federal spending. We 
are depending on the Social Security Trust Fund to establish a fiction 
that we have balanced the budget. We are talking about tax cuts, but we 
do not have a budget resolution.
  This is the first time in the 24 years that we have had budget 
legislation on the books that establishes a budgeting procedure and 
calls for a budget resolution to provide guidance to us as a Congress 
that we have failed in this respect. Mr. Speaker, I submit that this is 
a grievous mistake in this body, to simply ignore the budget process 
that we have developed and assume that the American people will 
overlook it. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to the people of 
this Nation and to the Federal agencies to establish budget policy as 
we move ahead into this fiscal year.
  The second subject I would like to briefly address is the state of 
the American farm economy. Last week I had the opportunity to travel 
back to my district, rural Minnesota. I went to the Cargill Elevator at 
Litchfield, Minnesota, and visited with farmers as they hauled in 
soybeans and corn. I asked them about their yields, what the current 
prices mean with respect to their ability to operate next year; what 
they think we ought to do.
  There were two comments that I heard that were repeated. One was: 
Where is the marketing loan program that we have talked about and we 
have pleaded for? Uncap the loan rates. The second was: What has 
happened to the crop insurance program? We have had a disastrous loss 
on our farms, but we are finding there are no benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit that one of the tragedies of the 1996 farm bill 
is that we did not use these tools that farmers can access to manage 
their risk as a cornerstone for Federal farm policy. Instead, they were 
placed in the second rank of importance. Instead, we had automatic cash 
payments that we provided that would go out to farmers year by year, 
whether it was a good year or a bad year, whether they had good crops 
or poor crops. Now, we are paying the price.
  I would like to emphasize that the President is currently working 
with the Senate in hopes that we can restore these programs to the 
important function that they could play. I call upon my colleagues to 
join with me in emphasizing that these tools that farmers in this great 
Nation can use to manage their risk and to stabilize prices ought to be 
available to them.
  We ought to be investing our budget resources for agriculture in 
tools such as this. We ought to revisit the 1996 farm bill and be 
willing to ask where can improvements be made, make those improvements, 
and enable agriculture to move ahead proudly in 1999 with the prospect 
that agriculture can again be successful in America.

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