[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 44 (Thursday, April 18, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1474-H1480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CONTRADICTIONS IN NATIONAL SOCIAL PROGRAMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, our last debate today was very instructive 
when you combine the last debate of the day, which was a debate about 
whether or not our great Nation will feed legal immigrants by allowing 
them into the food stamps program, and you combine that debate with the 
debate we had earlier about making permanent a tax cut which will 
provide for the richest people of the Nation further tax relief. The 
tax cut is equal to four times the size of the budget of the entire 
Department of Education. It is more than three times as large as the 
Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Transportation.
  When you look at that combined with the fact that next week we are 
going to be discussing the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance 
to Needy Families Act, that replacement of the old Aid to Families With 
Dependent Children, we are looking in America at sort of 
contradictions. Let us add to that the fact that earlier today we 
debated the placement of a cap on the farm subsidies act, the farm 
bill.

                              {time}  1730

  The farm subsidies were created in the same spirit that the Aid to 
Families with Dependent Children was created. It was created in the 
same spirit as food stamps were created. They were created on the 
assumption that there are certain Americans who need help. We need a 
safety net for them. The safety net is there for people who need food, 
and food stamps were a way to administer and process our assistance to 
people who need food.
  Sometimes there are desperately poor people, most of them are 
desperately poor, and sometimes they are not so poor, but people who 
are caught in a temporary situation, where their income falls short and 
they are unemployed. Even some middle income people unemployed have 
taken advantage of the food stamp program. If they happen to be legal 
immigrants, however, we cut them off. In a Nation with plenty, we do 
not want to give food to legal immigrants.
  At the same time, the farm subsidy program is overly generous and has 
been greatly abused, and the vote we took today was a vote to put a cap 
on farm subsidies for farmers. Let us forget about the complications of 
farm corporations, the fact that the agriculture business is not a 
business of small farmers anymore, but there are often many large 
corporations benefiting from the farm subsidies.
  But it was not supposed to be a program to benefit anybody except 
those who were at risk of falling through the safety net, so earlier 
today we prided ourselves on voting to put a cap, to instruct the 
conferees who are considering the bill now to put a cap on the farm 
subsidies at $175,000. That is per year, my colleagues. $175,000 per 
year. That would be the cap. Right now there is no cap, so some get 
much more than that.
  As I progress with this statement tonight, I am going to read some of 
the examples of the kind of benefits that are being received by 
America's farmers, who are, after all, not working. They do not have to 
put in any special volunteer work to do this, to do anything, in order 
to qualify for the safety net program for farmers. The farm subsidy 
program is a safety net program for farmers. The food stamp program is 
a safety net program for hungry Americans.
  Legal immigrants, by the way, as one of the speakers pointed out, 
legal immigrants are allowed to fight in our Armed Forces, and a large 
number are out there in the Armed Forces right now, and more are being 
encouraged to enter our Armed Forces. In fact, the recruiting process 
of our military is such that they are making a special effort to reach 
immigrant communities. They have set up a large recruitment center just 
one block from my office in the 11th Congressional District in 
Brooklyn. They have set up a recruitment center at a place which is a 
transportation hub for immigrants. Large numbers of people who are 
immigrants, mostly immigrants from the Caribbean, come through this 
hub, and they have made an effort to reach them, in particular to get 
them to sign up for the military. They will reach their quotas faster, 
because a large percentage ever the people who are now signing up for 
our military are immigrants.
  These people can know go off and fight for America, they can go off 
to meet our military needs, and yet they are not able to qualify for 
food stamps. I think one of the speakers previously pointed out that 
they could not, even if they are soldiers. Some of our soldiers are 
paid so low that they do qualify, their families do qualify for food 
stamps, but not if they are legal immigrants. They are soldiers. They 
can fight and die, but they cannot receive food stamps.
  Those are contradictions which I do not think we ought to be content 
to live with. The American spirit ought to try to wrestle with greater 
fervor against some of these contradictions. We have, on the one hand, 
a very generous spirit, which leads us to send food throughout the 
world. We are feeding people all over the world with surplus American 
food.
  Certainly, long before we were able to bring the Taliban down in 
Afghanistan, we were delivering food to Afghanistan, and we sometimes 
dropped food from airplanes. We understand the need for food, the power 
of food, and yet the contradiction here is we are not willing to feed 
legal immigrants within our own borders.
  That contradiction will be further highlighted next week when we 
debate the Temporary Assistance for Families in Need bill. We approach 
families in need in this country with great contempt, and yet those 
people who are in need are certainly worthy of some help, worthy of 
being caught up in the safety net. They are falling in the safety net 
that is designed for them as much as for anybody else. I will talk a 
little bit about that.
  If we have to talk in military terms, we will talk in military terms. 
We are all concerned about the fight against terrorism. We are all 
concerned. The first line of defense is, of course, to deal with the 
people who have attacked us and to confront them head on and to 
hit them where their bases are and to break up their whole 
conglomeration of evil and terror, and I applaud the President for 
moving in that manner.

  I do not consider myself a hawk. I would generally be called a dove. 
But I think when we moved against bin Laden and the stronghold bin 
Laden had in Afghanistan, it was the right move. But in order to do 
that, we move with human beings, and many of those human beings are 
people who are the sons and daughters of folks that we hold in contempt 
back in America when we do the Temporary Assistance to Families in 
Need.
  In other words, I am saying that a large number of the people who go 
off to fight our wars are poor people, and for us to take a position 
that we have contempt for them and we want to harass them and drive 
them off the welfare rolls and force them to go to work for less than 
minimum wage through ``workfare'' programs, what we are doing is 
attacking the people who are providing the foot soldiers, the foot 
soldiers to keep America great, to keep America free, to fight our 
battles.
  I am going to talk a little later about the fact I have done an 
analysis of who dies in the wars, who died in World War I, who died in 
World War II, and who our casualties in Vietnam were. They were mostly 
poor, from the urban centers and from the rural areas. They were mostly 
poor soldiers, our foot soldier class.
  We do not like to think of classes in America. We say there is no 
class warfare in America. That is an accurate statement. There is no 
class warfare, because the poor do not have any advocates. They do not 
have anybody to fight for them, so it is not warfare. There is no 
warfare. The rich are in control thoroughly, and the tax bill that we 
passed today is just one more

[[Page H1475]]

indication of how thoroughly they control our American democracy.
  Yes, you can have a democracy where the people vote against their own 
interests, or you can have a democracy where people act against their 
own interests, because those who do not vote are acting against their 
own interests. We know even in presidential elections, something close 
to 49 percent of the people do not go out to vote. If in our 
presidential elections, our most important elections, you only have 51 
percent of the people voting, you can imagine how that falls down as 
you go down to the Senate, the House, local State and elected 
officials.
  Those who do not vote have nobody to blame in the final analysis but 
themselves in a democracy, but their actions are part of a process by 
which the majority interests are not served in a democracy. A democracy 
allows a minority to usurp their prerogatives and to act in their 
interests. The tax bill that was passed today is an example of that.
  The tax cuts represent the worst kind of priorities. What we do here 
in Washington and in the House is always an important thing involving 
priorities, how you set priorities, how you make use of available 
resources.
  When I get back to my district, like during the period where we had a 
long work period, in my district I am constantly confronted by people 
that have special questions about what are you doing down there that 
makes any difference to me? Why are you not doing something to relieve 
my particular problems here?
  Senior citizens are upset by the fact that in New York City now the 
Department for the Aging is cutting Meals-on-Wheels. They are proposing 
to close down some services for senior citizens, to make them pay a 
greater share for their lunches. They want to know what are you doing 
in Washington for me?
  Well, the problem in New York is probably partially a problem of deep 
budget cuts because of a great loss of revenue caused by the fact that 
the World Trade Center was the heart of our financial districts and the 
financial district was a great generator of tax money, of revenue. So 
the folks in New York, senior citizens, are suffering from the budget 
cuts because of the fact that bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist 
network chose as a target a piece of America that happened to be in New 
York City.
  He was not attacking New York City or senior citizens in the 
communities of Brooklyn. He does not care about the senior citizens in 
Brownsville and in East New York or Flatbush. He does not care about 
the people of New York. The terrorists and the people who attacked the 
World Trade Center were attacking the United States of America, but the 
suffering is disproportionately being borne by the people of New York 
City at this point.
  Yes, we are getting a large amount of money to rebuild the Trade 
Center. The President has promised more than $20 billion to rebuild and 
take care of the reconstruction and the removal of the wreckage and to 
help the businesses in the financial area. But there is no program that 
seeks to deal with the loss of revenue. There is no program offering 
New York City any assistance for the great loss of revenue which leads 
to the cuts in senior citizens programs or the loss of revenue 
which leads to the cuts in education, the school budget.

  Now, that is not a phenomenon unique to New York. All over the 
country we are having problems with our school budgets. We have 
documented that in our Committee on Education and Workforce, that the 
majority of the States are cutting school budgets, cutting their aid to 
education, and localities are finding the necessity to cut aid to 
education.
  So, what does it have to do with us here in Washington? We could, 
instead of giving a huge tax cut to the richest people in America, we 
could give more aid to education. I just said before that the tax cut 
that we voted, that the majority of the House voted, I certainly voted 
against it, along with most of the members of the Democratic Party, we 
voted against it, but we are outnumbered here, so the House voted for a 
tax cut which is four times as large as the budget for the entire 
Department of Education.
  That is significant, that at a time when we are forced to make cuts 
in our school budgets, we get no more aid from the Federal Government 
than we get during prosperous times. One would say, well, there is the 
old adage about education being the responsibility of the States, the 
responsibility of localities, so why do you keep bringing up education 
as a Federal responsibility?
  Well, education is our number one national security issue. We are a 
high-tech society. Our military is high-tech. Our ability to defend 
ourselves and to bring down the terrorist network in Afghanistan or 
anywhere else depends on high technology.
  Even in small matters, and I do not want to invade the territory of 
the military experts, but even in small matters, which are not so 
small, I guess, even in matters which are detailed in terms of our 
performance on the battlefield, we are losing more men and women, more 
of our combatants on the battlefield, through human error in this war 
than we have as a result of enemy engagements.
  We just lost the lives of four Canadians because of human error. One 
of our planes fired into a Canadian group just yesterday, and, if you 
hear all the different explanations for it, it was really human error. 
The pilot was not given an order to fire, because they were checking 
out the area. The information his headquarters had was greater than the 
information he had, and he panicked and fired, and human error cost 
four more lives.
  We have lost a number of other lives as a result of human errors. It 
is not grounds for a detailed analysis of the war, but it is just one 
more indication of the fact that a high-tech army, high-tech military, 
will require more and more well-educated people in order to minimize 
human error. So even in the matter of combat, education becomes very 
important.

                              {time}  1745

  But the infrastructure which produces the weapons and the whole 
system that keeps our economy strong and allows us to afford a first-
rate military is all dependent on education. So here we are at a time 
when education is suffering, and we are extending the tax cut to the 
richest people in America; and that is a part of the great 
contradiction. We have what I referred to in an earlier rap poem that I 
read a few weeks ago; we have great angels in America who understand 
our particular point, our pivotal point in history at this point. They 
understand that we are the key to civilization, which we are. Whether 
civilization goes forward and realizes its full potential or rolls 
backward and is caught up in the jaws of people like bin Laden who say 
that all the folks who want to roll back history, take away freedoms, 
oppress women, have no use for democracy and votes.
  Mr. Speaker, the world is governed by more governments that are not 
democratic than are democratic. The world has leaders in power who have 
contempt for women, who have contempt for minorities. We are not in 
such good shape if we look over the entire Earth and we look at what is 
happening in terms of the leadership and the governments and those in 
control. We are at a pivotal point; and we are leading the charge for a 
more civilized world, a world where everybody has a right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where we are in favor of equal 
rights for all. As I said in my poem, ``Let's Roll, America'' a few 
weeks ago, we can sing the high hallelujah note, because all of our 
races and women can vote. We can celebrate that.
  In every language of the Earth, to the country of all nations, we 
have proudly given birth. All of the languages of the earth, those 
immigrants that some people want to deny food stamps for, they are part 
of what we have created. We have created a nation where all languages 
are spoken. We have created a nation where all of the people of the 
Earth aspire to get here and be a part of it.
  I do not subscribe at all and do not have any patience for the notion 
that Americans are the objects of great anger, that people despise us. 
That is ridiculous. Throughout the world, most people, ordinary people, 
the vast majority of people, they envy us perhaps, and they admire us 
more so than despise us. There is a leadership out there that feels 
that it is on the spot. They do not produce for their people. They use 
the resources of their nations to

[[Page H1476]]

make the rich richer. They do a lot of things that lead them to want to 
see America removed from the scene because we are examples of how a 
government and a nation can work for all of the people, all of the 
people.
  We are an example of how you create a consumer market by being just, 
by having fair wage laws, by having working conditions, benefits, 
pension plans, all of which work and really do not swindle the people 
and that works. There is a lot of business leaderships and military 
leaders and government leaders across the world who hate that because 
they like to see those kinds of components of a government and of a 
civilization not displayed because they do not want to offer it to 
their own people.
  So we are not hated in the world. The majority of the people, the 
ordinary people very much admire Americans because we are what I call 
``great angels.'' I said in the same poem, ``Let's Roll, America'' was 
the name of the rap poem that I did a few weeks ago, and I said at that 
time that the Olympics are forever. We will win all the races. We are 
great angels of tomorrow, with magic mongrel faces. We are a mixture of 
people but, most of all, the spirit of the great angels is there. The 
spirit of the great angels is there in competition with the spirit of 
what I call the giant Scrooges.
  The giant Scrooges are always on stage here. The giant Scrooges are 
in command here in the House of Representatives. They have the 
majority. They can pass a tax bill which makes it impossible for Social 
Security to be secure over the next 25 to 50 years. They are the ones 
who combined, in a bipartisan move, to lock the box and make certain 
that Social Security would not be threatened. But what this tax cut 
does is threatens Social Security.
  Those seniors back in my district who are worried about food stamps, 
who are worried about their centers being closed and the lunches that 
they have at the senior citizen centers, the rate that they pay will be 
going up, and they are worried about the Meals-on-Wheels programs being 
shut down. They have bigger worries if the Republicans continue to 
insist on a pattern of tax cuts that make it impossible to balance our 
budget, that drive us into deficit. All of this has to be looked at 
together. The same Republicans who would terrorize and harass welfare 
mothers, the mothers of the foot soldiers who go off to fight our wars, 
those same people insist on creating bigger and bigger tax cuts for the 
rich. They are jeopardizing in the process, they are jeopardizing 
Social Security, something that every senior considers to be most 
basic.
  The last thing that they will tolerate from me is a statement which 
tells them that I am a Democrat, I cannot do anything about the forward 
march toward threatening Social Security, or privatizing Social 
Security. They do not want to hear from any elected official who says 
they cannot protect Social Security. And we must understand that there 
would be a revolution here in this Nation if we continue to threaten 
Social Security.
  The kind of incremental threats that are woven into the Republican 
tax cuts are hard to get people, it is hard to get people to 
understand. But in just 1 year, the surplus projections for the next 
decade have declined by $4 trillion as a result of the Republican tax 
plan. They have broken the lockboxes by spending trillions of Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds on other things. The Republicans 
shamelessly will try to escape blame by pretending that the war on 
terrorism has caused a $4 trillion loss. Simple arithmetic will tell us 
that it has not been the case. According to the Congressional Budget 
Office, the war on terrorism costs $10.2 billion this year. That is a 
tiny fraction of the unprecedented deterioration and the position of 
the budget in terms of the surplus.
  Where did all the money go? The bulk went to fulfilling Republican 
campaign promises to pass tax breaks for wealthy contributors to the 
Republican Party. According to the Citizens for Tax Justice, 37.6 
percent of the benefits of the final tax bill will go to the top 1 
percent of the income earners in this Nation. Mr. Speaker, 37.6 percent 
of the benefits of the tax bill will go to the top 1 percent of income 
earners. These are the giant Scrooges who want to more and more enrich 
the rich.
  We now know that the money for these tax breaks comes from payroll 
tax contributions that every worker makes to Social Security and 
Medicare. In the final analysis, that is where the money is. Willy 
Sutton used to say when he was asked, why do you rob banks, and he 
would say, that is where the money is. Where do you get the money to 
balance the budget if you are going to give huge tax cuts? You get it 
from Social Security and Medicare, because that is where the money is.
  Our Leader Gephardt has called for a bipartisan summit to work out a 
blueprint for how America will get itself out of this mess. As it 
stands, the extending of the tax cut will further raid the Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds which the Republicans claim not to 
touch. We need a bipartisan truth commission to tell the truth about 
what the real threat to Social Security is and how the tax cut becomes 
a threat to Social Security, and a tax cut becomes the problem behind 
the problems that the people in my district are complaining about. You 
cannot have some relief on education expenditures coming from the 
Federal Government if the relief that might have been there is being 
poured into a tax cut.
  The Federal Government, at a point in history like this, when we not 
only have great budget cuts in education in New York City, but across 
the whole country, we should have some relief for the States and for 
the local governments, and that relief has been proposed in our 
education legislation. We propose that the Federal Government take on 
the full responsibility for special education. If we took on the full 
responsibility for, not full responsibility, but that we live up to the 
original legislation on special education which said that the Federal 
Government would pay 40 percent of the cost, and right now we are 
paying something like 10 or 11 percent of the cost of special 
education. If we were just to assume the 40 percent costs for special 
education instead of pouring our money into tax cuts, take a portion of 
that, a relatively small portion and put it into special education, we 
would free up funds at the local level to be spent on education in some 
other way.

  Forty percent of the cost, instead of 11 percent of the cost, means 
that local education agency would be able to take that money and fill 
in some of these budget cuts that are resulting, not only in New York, 
which has suffered probably more than most big cities because of the 9-
11 attack which took away our taxes, our revenue to pay for education, 
but across the country. One gesture like that would be beneficial to 
education right across the board.
  In addition to that, the President should go ahead and fund title I. 
They promised to begin the process by, increase title I by adding to 
the title I fund in each year until within 5 years we would have twice 
as much funding in title I as we presently have. But right away, 
despite that promise, the President backed away in his budget that was 
sent to Congress. Two items live up to our promise to fund special 
education by going all the way to the 40 percent and increase the 
funding for title I, and we would bring a great deal of relief already 
to the education budgets out there that are suffering right now.
  So it all relates, Mr. Speaker. I hope that I am not confusing any of 
our colleagues. We have had a discussion about the tax cut and what the 
impact of that is. We have had a discussion about the farm bill and 
setting a cap, putting a cap on farm subsidies. We are going to have a 
discussion next week, and preliminary discussions are taking place 
right now, and all of the committees, the committees of jurisdiction, 
the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce are discussing the temporary assistance to families in need. 
We had a discussion, of course, earlier here today on food stamps for 
immigrants. It all relates.
  I think that the challenge of leadership in America nowadays is not a 
challenge of knowing the facts; it is a challenge of how we put it all 
together once we get the facts. Probably the challenge of leadership 
anywhere in the world is understanding the complexities of the world 
and understanding how one thing relates to another, and being able to 
provide some leadership which will make use of the

[[Page H1477]]

existing resources so that everybody benefits.
  The great angels of tomorrow we are. As Americans, one side of our 
personality says we are great angels and we want to do the right thing 
for everybody, including the people in this country, and then beyond 
that, to provide help for other people throughout the world. That is 
one part of our spirit. The other part of our spirit is demonic. It is 
giant Scrooges. People who want to take food stamps away from legal 
immigrants; people who want to give welfare recipients, a family of 
three, I think in Wisconsin they get less than $300 a month for a 
family of three. That is considered a successful program for welfare 
recipients, aid to families in need.

                              {time}  1800

  All of these things are related. Setting priorities and determining 
how does our great wealth get utilized to push civilization forward is 
a great question. It is there in all of these issues. They do relate 
very much.
  I want to make certain that I make it clear that the class problem is 
at the heart of the way we make decisions in America. We do not have 
class warfare, we hate to bring up the whole issue of class, but class 
is very much a problem.
  There is among the giant Scrooges, there is also contempt for the 
poor. The giant Scrooges are people who have contempt for poor people, 
just as Scrooge did in Charles Dickens' novel. They have great contempt 
for poor people.
  The giant Scrooges of America have a lot of racism also woven into 
that. The harshness with which we treat people on welfare, the way the 
law is formulated, is partially due to the perception that this is 
thought that this is a program mostly for minorities. If we treated 
farmers in the same manner, we could say, well, it is people who want 
to make certain that the taxpayers get their money's worth; people who 
are frugal, who have respect for the taxpayers and want to make certain 
that we spend money wisely. If that was the case, then why do we not 
apply the same standards to farmers or to the farm subsidy program that 
we apply to welfare recipients?
  We will be reauthorizing the temporary assistance to families in 
need, and in that bill we say nobody, no matter how needy, they can 
only have assistance from the Federal Government for 5 years. The 5-
career limit has been imposed. We say it has been very successful. It 
has made people more conscious of the fact that they need to go to work 
and get off welfare.
  There may be some truth to that. Why do we not impose a 5-year limit 
on the farm subsidy program? Why did we not impose a 5-year limit on 
the farm subsidy program a long time ago? Why do we have unlimited 
amounts of money being paid out in the case of the farm subsidy program 
when we have very paltry amounts being paid to families who are in need 
under the TANF, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act?
  If we are considering frugality and the best use of taxpayers' money, 
what motivates us to pay $20 to $22 billion out to the farm community 
when less than 2 percent of the people of America are farmers? What is 
going on as we set our priorities?
  And why do we pay 40 percent of the farm subsidy money, why do we pay 
most of the farm subsidy money to 40 percent of the farmers, so that 60 
percent of the farmers get nothing? Family farms who are really poor in 
that 60 percent get zero, while 40 percent of the agricultural 
businesses, I will not call them farms, in America are receiving most 
of the money.
  If we are only concerned about the best use of our taxpayers' money, 
why do we let the farm program continue to rob us blind? In addition to 
the subsidies, there are also farm home loans, special loans for 
farmers, disaster loans for farmers. Less than 2 percent of the 
population walks away with a great part of the budget. What is going on 
in terms of our priority-setting?
  If we are great angels of tomorrow, as I think some of us are, the 
great angels would want to make certain that we use our resources 
across-the-board to help the greatest number of people. Why can we not 
have a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, and save some of 
the money from the abuses in the farm subsidy program in order to 
finance a program for prescription drug benefits? What is going on 
here? Why do we let the Scrooges prevail?
  Evidently, the same Scrooges, giant Scrooges who are in charge of our 
tax cut program, are also funneling money to a small percentage of the 
farming businesses. I might not object to the farm subsidy program if 
we could guarantee that it went to the poor farmers, but we admit that 
it is going to farmers who are getting large amounts of money.
  In fact, we consider it a victory today that we voted for a motion to 
instruct the conferees that was prepared by the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Smith). The gentleman's motion was to instruct the conferees who 
are considering the farm bill now to put a cap on the program, accept 
the Senate proposal for a cap; that is, an amount, a limit on the 
amount of money that farmers can get. We, I think, voted for a cap of 
$175,000 per year, $175,000 per year. That would be the cap. We 
consider that a victory. How wonderful it is that we have put a cap of 
$175,000 on a subsidy that farmers can get.
  It is a safety net program. It is a handout, if we want to get into 
the slang that is used by the Scrooges when they are considering giving 
$300 to a family of three on welfare; it is a handout. They hand it out 
with great contempt, and they complain about it, and they look for ways 
to push a person off the welfare rolls who is maybe getting $300 a 
month. We can see how much that adds up for a year.

  The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) wrote a letter to all his 
colleagues. If we want to talk about bipartisan cooperation, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is a Republican.
  ``Dear Colleague: You have received letters from many Members 
supporting limitations on farm subsidy payments. Some farms now receive 
millions of dollars. On Wednesday, I will offer a motion to instruct 
House conferees on the farm bill, H.R. 2646. It will direct them to 
accept the farm subsidy caps added to the legislation in the Senate. 
The caps will limit farmers to $225,000 in subsidies per year; if they 
have a spouse, $275,000 per year.
  ``The purpose of subsidies since the beginning has been to protect 
family farmers. Unfortunately, about 82 percent of all subsidies now go 
to just 17 percent of the farmers. By providing unlimited subsidies, we 
have encouraged huge corporate farm operations to get bigger and 
bigger, squeezing out family farmers.
  ``You may have heard from some farm and commodity groups in 
opposition to this idea, but make no mistake about it, they do not 
speak for the majority of farmers and ranchers. Last year, 27 of the 
Nation's land grant colleges from all the Nation's regions came 
together to poll farmers and ranchers on their opinions of the farm 
bill.
  ``On the issue of farm payment caps, there was enormous consensus: 
Nationwide, 81 percent of farmers and ranchers agreed that farm income 
support payments should be targeted to small farms. Limiting subsidies 
to any particular farmer will help traditional-sized family farms.
  ``Please consider supporting the motion to instruct on Wednesday,'' 
et cetera, et cetera, by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), 
Member of Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record this letter from the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Smith) to his colleagues.
  The letter referred to is as follows:
                                    Congress of the United States,


                                     House of Representatives,

                                   Washington, DC, April 15, 2002.

                         Protect Family Farms!

                          Cap Farm Subsidies!

       Dear Colleague: You have received letters from many members 
     supporting limitations on farm subsidy payments. Some farms 
     now receive millions of dollars.
       On Wednesday, I will offer a motion to instruct House 
     conferees on the farm bill (H.R. 2646). It will direct them 
     to accept the farm subsidy caps added to the legislation in 
     the Senate. The caps will limit farmers to $225,000 in 
     subsidies per year ($275,000 with spouse).
       The purpose of subsidies, since the beginning, has been to 
     protect family farmers. Unfortunately, about 82% of all 
     subsidies now go to just 17% of the farms. By providing 
     unlimited subsidies, we've encouraged huge, corporate farm 
     operations to get bigger and bigger, squeezing out family 
     farmers.
       You may have heard from some farm and commodity groups in 
     opposition to this idea,

[[Page H1478]]

     but make no mistake about it--THEY DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE 
     MAJORITY OF FARMERS AND RANCHERS!
       Last year, 27 of the nation's land grant colleges from all 
     the nation's regions came together to poll farmers and 
     ranchers on their opinions of the farm bill. On the issue of 
     farm payment caps, there was enormous consensus. Nationwide 
     81 percent of farmers and ranchers agreed that farm income 
     support payments should be targeted to small farms.
       Limiting subsidies to any particular farmer will help 
     traditional-size family farms. Please consider supporting the 
     motion to instruct on Wednesday. For additional information, 
     please contact me or Dan Byers on my staff at 5-5064.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Nick Smith,
                                               Member of Congress.

  Mr. Speaker, I want my constituents at home to understand that the 
great angels who care about fairness, who want to see our resources 
spread to all the people, do not come necessarily in just certain 
parties. I have criticized the Republicans for their actions, but the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is a Republican.
  A large number of people are offended by the fact that the giant 
Scrooges take over, and they are shameless in the way they use the 
taxpayers' money. If there is ever a program which shows us what the 
giant Scrooges are doing in the mismanagement of America's resources, 
it is the farm subsidy program.
  I have indicated, I think, before on this floor that there is a 
special group called the Environmental Working Group, and they have 
done us all a great service to let Members really see how outrageous 
the farm subsidy program is.
  Again, the farm subsidy program is supposed to be a safety net 
program for small farmers, for the poor. All of our safety net programs 
are designed to help people who cannot help themselves. After all, this 
is a capitalistic economy. Farming is a business. Do we want to have 
socialistic supports for the agribusiness when we do not have 
socialistic supports for any other business? Farming is a business.
  It is okay, it is part of our credo, to take care of those who are in 
danger in some way of falling through the safety net. We wanted to 
support family farms and keep our farmers, family farms, out there, not 
have them all migrate to the cities and turn over the whole 
agricultural production to great corporations, big corporations. That 
is an objective that I certainly concur with. It is in the spirit of 
the great angels of America.
  But the Scrooges have taken over, and long ago, for years now, it has 
been totally out of hand. I am talking to rural Congressmen, I am 
talking to big city Congressmen. We all deserve to be able to tell our 
constituents a better story than ``This is necessary to keep the food 
prices cheap in our supermarkets.''
  It actually keeps the prices higher, Mr. Speaker. It keeps us in a 
situation where we are paying more than we would pay if capitalism were 
to go to work in our farm, in the agricultural business.
  But in addition to not violating the tenets of capitalism, which I do 
not take exception to. I think we have a capitalistic economy. There 
are a lot of socialistic elements in it. When we apply those 
socialistic elements, I do not complain. I do not think we should be 
stuck in a rut, that capitalism is so great that it cannot learn from 
some other forms of economic production.
  We have capitalism in the banking industry that helped bail out the 
savings and loan associations. That socialism in the banking industry 
recently came to the aid of some of our big investing groups, so we 
have across the world capitalist economies like Korea and others who 
have taken steps to have the government intervene to prop up 
businesses.
  Those are socialistic elements of economic dealings that make sense, 
they are pragmatic. We bailed out Mexico when they were about to go 
under by intervening with $20 billion in loans. So it is not 
automatically an evil to have socialistic actions being taken in the 
economy. But if we do that, at least we ought to have an end game which 
produces fairness.
  This Environmental Working Group, they created a website on the 
Internet, so Members can go and see every person, family, or business 
in America that gets farm subsidies. Members can find out who they are, 
where they are located, and exactly how much they are getting, or how 
much they were getting in the year 2000. It is http://www.ewg.org/
farm/. Members can look in the Congressional Record and get the website 
address, and go to the website and find out exactly what farmers are 
getting State by State, county by county.
  What Members will find is that whereas the State of Wisconsin, and I 
am going to take Wisconsin as an example because next week we are going 
to hear a lot about Wisconsin. When we start discussing the 
reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Act, we 
are going to talk about Governor Thompson, who had the model program, 
it has been cited as a model program, in Wisconsin. Governor Thompson 
did such a great job until President Bush asked Governor Thompson to 
come to Washington and head the Health and Human Services Agency, 
because he has a model program.
  Well, in Wisconsin, their program might have been a few degrees 
better than the New York City program under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Rudy 
Giuliani, who performed so magnificently during the crisis precipitated 
by the attack on the World Trade Center, has more contempt for poor 
people probably than any leader in America. The workfare program in New 
York City was one of the worst. But I think the present administration 
admires the Giuliani program even more than it admired Governor 
Thompson's program.
  Governor Thompson's Wisconsin program, the model program, is a 
program that provided less than $300 a month for a family of three, 
less than $300 a month. The Governor of Wisconsin, Mr. Thompson, who is 
now Secretary of Health and Human Services, saved money by pushing 
people off the welfare rolls. The caseload went down. He saved money.
  He did not put that money back into the program to provide more money 
for education or transportation, or in some way benefit the recipients 
who needed help in getting more training, more education, in order to 
get jobs.

                              {time}  1815

  He used the money instead for other kinds of activity. He did what we 
call supplanting. He supplanted money meant for the poor. He moved it 
about in the budget until he could free up money so he could use it for 
other State projects. That is what we are saluting in Washington right 
now as a model program. He took money from the poor and used it for 
other State projects and that is supposed to be wonderful.
  He has minimum programs to allow people to get education. Vocational 
education is permitted under the TANF program; higher education is not. 
If someone wants to go to junior college, community college, become a 
hygienist or a technician of some kind, the kinds of jobs that are 
available that pay decent salary, that have a future, they cannot do 
that under the program that Governor Thompson put forth and has now 
become the model for Federal programs. Cannot do that.
  The same Governor Thompson in the State of Wisconsin, according to 
the record, has never raised his voice against farm subsidies. If 
Governor Thompson is a hero because he pushed those terrible people off 
the welfare roll, and sent them out to get a job, he wants to make the 
best use of the taxpayers money, then I ask him to tell us, tell us, 
Secretary Thompson, why do you not deal with the farm subsidy abuses in 
Wisconsin?
  I have a list of the top 100 farm subsidy recipients in Wisconsin. 
Again, like Wisconsin, like every other place, the poorest farmers are 
not getting the money. It is the top 40 percent who get all of the 
money, just about.
  The first 100 recipients, according to amounts, the first top 
recipient Dane County Growers. That is a corporation in Edgerton, 
Wisconsin. They get $457,646 per year, the annual amount they received 
in year 2000.
  Let us go down to some individuals and skip over what looks like 
corporations. Jeffrey M. Hahn, Cambria, Wisconsin, $268,998.57. This 
man, of course, would be against the cap that we just passed because 
the cap that is being proposed by the Senate is $225,000. He is getting 
$268,998.
  What do these people have to do to get the taxpayers' money? Do they 
have to do volunteer service? This Congress, under the leadership of 
the Republicans a few years ago, voted to

[[Page H1479]]

make people in public housing do 8 hours of service per month because 
they are recipients of subsidized housing. The law now says, as a 
result of an amendment passed on this floor when the Republican 
majority votes, that a person has got to do 8 hours of public service 
if they are in a publicly subsidized housing development, public 
housing. Do we make any of these recipients of these large amounts of 
money do public service? What is it that we are getting in exchange for 
this? It is supposed to be a program for people who need it very badly; 
but if someone is getting year after year $400,000, $200,000, are they 
needy, really?
  When we go down the list all the way, there are people getting 
$170,394 per year. Again, the welfare recipient in Wisconsin will get 
$300 a month times 12 months. That is $3,600 for a family of three; but 
in Wisconsin, the man whose 100th on this list, down at the very bottom 
in terms of the first 100 recipients, Mr. Thomas P. Sayre, Jr., 
Edgerton, Wisconsin, is getting $157,227. What is the criteria in 
America for giving somebody $157,227 of tax payers money versus giving 
a family of three $3,600?
  The list that I am referring to is as follows:

 EWG FARM SUBSIDY DATABASE--TOP 100 RECIPIENTS OF FARM SUBSIDIES IN 2001
                                WISCONSIN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                           Farm Subsidy
           Rank name                     Location           Total 2001
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Dane County Growers Ptrn.....  Edgerton, WI 53534.....     $457,646.10
2 Metcalf Farms................  Janesville, WI 53546...      454,011.85
3 Hamp Haven Farms.............  Reedsville, WI 54230...      453,442.97
4 Wilks Brothers...............  Union Grove, WI 53182..      398,193.39
5 Weeks Farms..................  Sharon, WI 53585.......      395,499.43
6 Kippley Farms................  Waunakee, WI 53597.....      351,146.14
7 Bolton Farms.................  Burlington, WI 53105...      336,608.86
8 Roger Rebout & Sons Farm.....  Janesville, WI 53545...      324,424.02
9 Noble Grain Farms............  Burlington, WI 53105...      323,642.02
10 John E Walsh and Sons.......  Mauston, WI 53948......      307,842.42
11 Kuiper Family Farms.........  Union Grove, WI 53182..      302,465.26
12 Steinacker Farms Inc........  Hortonville, WI 54944..      293,647.02
13 Horizon Farms...............  Janesville, WI 53545...      292,665.30
14 Oneida Nation Farms.........  Seymour, WI 54165......      276,977.24
15 Jeffrey M Hahn..............  Cambria, WI 53923......      268,998.57
16 Falkers Farms...............  Viroqua, WI 54665......      267,386.17
17 Rossi Grain Farms...........  Bristol, WI 53104......      266,540.81
18 Gunderson Grain Farms.......  Waterford, WI 53185....      259,442.55
19 Hawkins Farms Inc...........  Bristol, WI 53104......      254,481.46
20 Riley Brothers..............  Mauston, WI 53948......      253,606.67
21 Hartung Farms...............  Arena, WI 53503........      247,256.02
22 Keske And Keske.............  East Troy, WI 53120....      245,384.58
23 Twin City Farms.............  Beloit, WI 53511.......      244,416.83
24 Mullikin Farms Partnership..  Janesville, WI 53546...      234,826.38
25 Emmert & Sons...............  Baldwin, WI 54002......      232,827.87
26 Bach Farms Llc..............  Dorchester, WI 54425...      228,155.79
27 Furseth Bros Real Estate      Stoughton, WI 53589....      225,066.67
 Partners.
28 Gorton Farms................  Racine, WI 53406.......      223,020.94
29 Huntsinger Farms............  Eau Claire, WI 54702...      220,761.30
30 Riesterer Farms.............  Milton, WI 53563.......      219,778.57
31 Dempsey Farms Partnership...  Eagle, WI 53119........      212,660.50
32 Timothy Robert Leidig.......  Prairie Du Sac, WI           211,268.76
                                  53578.
33 J-r Farms...................  Waunakee, WI 53597.....      210,231.22
34 Schroeder Farms Partnership.  De Forest, WI 53532....      206,742.08
35 Luanne M Prochnow...........  Menomonie, WI 54751....      203,117.53
36 Ronnie Prochnow.............  Menomonie, WI 54571....      203,117.50
37 West Bros...................  Rice Lake, WI 54868....      202,831.88
38 Paul Olsen..................  Wautoma, WI 54982......      202,808.29
39 Reichling Farms.............  Darlington, WI 53530...      202,426.82
40 D & S Farms.................  Shullsburg, WI 53586...      201,940.38
41 David Olsen.................  Berlin, WI 54923.......      201,673.25
42 Wysocki Produce Farms Inc...  Bancroft, WI 54921.....      200,647.60
43 Larry C Sahm................  Chippewa Falls, WI           199,963.03
                                  54729.
44 Tab J Wiegel................  Darlington, WI 53530...      199,955.71
45 Runyard Grain...............  Oconomowoc, WI 53066...      198,840.88
46 Borzynski Brothers            Franksville, WI 53126..      198,396.38
 Properties.
47 Brenengen Family Farms......  Trempealeau, WI 54661..      197,598.17
48 Randall S Shotliff..........  Evansville, WI 53536...      195,306.68
49 Jerome J Laufenberg Inc.....  Alma Center, WI 54611..      194,668.65
50 Thunder Branch Acres Inc....  Darlington, WI 53530...      193,454.39
51 Henderson And Erickson......  New Richmond, WI 54017.      191,719.41
52 Kevin L Klahn...............  Brooklyn, WI 53521.....      188,835.33
53 Robert J Miller Jr..........  Oconomowoc, WI 53066...      188,290.95
54 Halleen Farms...............  Woodbury, MN 55125.....      187,491.67
55 Heartland Farms Inc.........  Hancock, WI 54943......      187,243.77
56 Jay R Sorensen..............  Pleasant Prairie, WI         187,096.48
                                  53158.
57 Kenneth L Russell...........  Barron, WI 54812.......      184,458.18
58 Trelay Farms Inc............  Livingston, WI 53554...      184,218.80
59 Mike Berget.................  Darlington, WI 53530...      183,920.50
60 Kelly Farms.................  Sun Prairie, WI 53590..      183,810.75
61 Blue Star Dairy Farms Ptrn..  De Forest, WI 53532....      182,942.62
62 Lentz Farms Inc.............  Ridgeland, WI 54763....      182,440.04
63 Meyer Dairy Grain Frm Inc...  Chilton, WI 53014......      180,882.47
64 Triple K Farm...............  Hartland, WI 53029.....      179,927.34
65 Vasby Farms Inc.............  Cambridge, WI 53523....      177,594.63
66 Kau Farms...................  Eagle, WI 53119........      177,005.21
67 Elmer Weis..................  Kenosha, WI 53142......      175,011.91
68 James G Reu.................  Fort Atkinson, WI 53538      174,322.56
69 Henry Thomas................  Menomonie, WI 54751....      174,294.01
70 Triple S Farms..............  Monroe, WI 53566.......      173,911.97
71 Douglas Farms Inc...........  Janesville, WI 53545...      173,090.12
72 S&I Farms...................  Hammond, WI 54015......      172,376.00
73 Charles Pearce Farms, Llc...  Walworth, WI 53184.....      172,008.24
74 Michael J Zimmerman.........  Beaver Dam, WI 53916...      171,708.55
75 Patrick J Place.............  South Wayne, WI 53587..      170,394.80
76 Howard & Floyd Wileman Farms  Edgerton, WI 53534.....      170,108.57
 Inc.
77 Fenrich Farms Inc...........  Evansville, WI 53536...      169,859.30
78 David Rieck.................  Elkhorn, WI 53121......      169,537.06
79 ShaferOs Acres..............  Rosendale, WI 54974....      168,963.26
80 Thomas P Sayre..............  Edgerton, WI 53534.....      168,386.57
81 Debra L Zimmerman...........  Beaver Dam, WI 53916...      167,410.55
82 Jack Sauer..................  Darlington, WI 53530...      166,905.83
83 S&S Grain Farms.............  Rio, WI 53960..........      166,884.62
84 Gary A Larson...............  Elk Mound, WI 54739....      166,488.26
85 D&D Partnership %dan Dumke..  Markesan, WI 53946.....      166,482.98
86 B Frms Inc..................  Marshall, WI 53559.....      164,882.07
87 Steven J Voda...............  Janesville, WI 53546...      164,003.13
88 J G & L Reynolds............  Genoa City, WI 53128...      162,913.35
89 Malchine Farms Inc..........  Waterford, WI 53185....      162,760.42
90 William Overbeck............  Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235.      162,235.49
91 Stephen Schwartz............  Shullsburg, WI 53586...      160,392.01
92 Custer Farm Inc.............  Chippewa Falls, WI           160,265.59
                                  54729.

[[Page H1480]]

 
93 Walter Farms, Inc...........  Elkhorn, WI 53121......      160,200.95
94 New Age Custom Farming Llc..  Prairie Du Sac, WI           159,963.83
                                  53578.
95 Robert C Traiser............  Osceola, WI 54020......      159,280.25
96 Edward H Montsma............  Fond Du Lac, WI 54937..      159,213.90
97 Larry V Pravechek...........  Luxemburg, WI 54217....      158,312.30
98 David R Faschingbauer.......  Bloomer, WI 54724......      157,905.30
99 David A Sayre...............  Edgerton, WI 53534.....      157,227.54
100 Thomas P Sayre Jr..........  Edgerton, WI 53534.....      157,227.17
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: USDA. Compiled by EWG.

  I would ask Governor Thompson to give us the answer. If he is a great 
advocate for the best use of the taxpayers money, why has he never 
spoken out against the farm subsidies that are clearly being abused in 
Wisconsin, and I cited Wisconsin only because Governor Thompson is from 
Wisconsin and he happens to be the man who is pushing now for an even 
more regressive and even more punitive bill than we have presently, a 
law that will give no room to breathe for people on welfare in terms of 
they must get a job but we do not want to give them an education, a 
chance to get an education.
  The present law will not allow anybody to go for a single day to an 
institution of higher learning. Vocational education is all they can 
do. Once we had in New York City, and the Federal Government did not 
prohibit it, a program which allowed people to go to junior college, 2 
years of junior college while they were on welfare in order to get 
their education, complete it to the point where they could become a tax 
payer.
  Study after study has shown that once people get even a degree from a 
junior college or from a senior college, once they get into that realm, 
they pay back far more to the tax rolls than they ever received as 
welfare recipients. It is common sense and yet the Federal law now 
forbids any State to allow people to go in an institution of higher 
learning. They have to be vocational education only; and yet the jobs 
that are needed are the nursing job, the dental hygienist job, the jobs 
in information technology. They are all in an area which requires about 
2 years of college.
  If we want to give a person a chance to get off welfare, to not 
receive a safety net subsidy, then let them go all the way to the point 
where they can get a decent job. That is not allowed under current law.
  So I am trying to make it understood to my constituents, to the 
constituency of others; and I think that when we have our debate next 
week on temporary assistance to families in need we will find out, 
needy families, we will find out whether there are any advocates for 
the poor.
  Are the Democrats going to advocate for that group out there that has 
nobody here to speak for them? They are far more than 2 percent of the 
population.
  Farmers are very well organized. The farmers have great, giant 
scrooges among them who did their homework years ago. The Department of 
Agriculture is the second largest agency in the Federal Government. Why 
at this time in America, when the population producing agricultural 
product is less than 2 percent of the population, why is the Department 
of Agriculture still the second largest agency in the Federal 
Government?
  Somebody has done their homework very well. Those Scrooges know how 
to organize. Those Scrooges know how to take from those in need and 
make certain that they always have subsidies greater than they should 
be getting, farmers home loans, disaster for farmers, et cetera.
  If there are Members of Congress listening who represent poor people, 
as I do, I am sure they are telling them what I tell them, that in 
America, people have the same opportunity. People have got to organize. 
People have got to come out and vote. Forty-nine percent of the 
American people who are not voting are the answer to all these 
problems.
  The great angels of America need them. Those people have the spirit 
of wanting to spread our wealth and our know-how and our system of 
government throughout the world. They want to combat terrorism. They 
want to make certain that civilization is not subject to all these dark 
and negative forces that are seeking to pull us down, the al Qaeda 
network and the people who think women ought to be treated like cattle 
and the people who have great contempt for democracy and do not want 
everybody to have a vote, the people who are stealing their countries 
blind, all of the resources of the country going to the hands of a few.
  There are forces out there which are in numbers greater than we are, 
and the only way we are going to conquer those forces is to have our 
own forces released. The great angels of America have to overcome the 
giant Scrooges. The giant Scrooges are always pressing to give our 
resources to the smallest number of people, and that is no way to keep 
America great.
  A nice way to defend our interests. Our interests have to be defended 
because we are generous. We are willing to use our know-how and our 
constitutional civilization to the advantage of every American, willing 
to use our constitutional civilization to the advantage of people all 
over the world.
  ``Let's roll, America. Set the tracks of destiny straight. Don't look 
back but close the gate, toast the past but change the cast. In every 
language of the earth to the country of all Nations we have proudly 
given birth. At the Olympics of forever we will win all the races; we 
are Great Angels of tomorrow with magic mongrel faces.
  ``Let kindergartners take a poll, full baby bellies is our favorite 
goal, usher in the age of soul.''
  ``America, let's roll.''

                          ____________________