[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 21 (Tuesday, March 1, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Conaway). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, recently other members of the House 
Committee on Agriculture and I met with the Commissioner of Agriculture 
of the European Union. She was not very complimentary of our current 
farm bill. She knows it keeps our farm economy very competitive with 
the European Union. Unfortunately, this commissioner's sentiments 
mirror the sentiments of many Americans. Many believe that the farm 
bill is too expensive, and I believe as we write a new budget the farm 
bill will certainly be on the chopping block.
  But I think it is important that we think about and remember a few 
things as we go into this process. First of all, in looking at the 
chart here, we can see that the current farm bill, which went into 
effect in 2002, actually was budgeted to cost $14 billion that year and 
it cost $13 billion. In 2003 it was budgeted to cost about 18.6 and it 
cost 12.1. In 2004, which we have just completed, the projected 
budgetary cost was $17.5 billion, and it actually cost $10.1 billion. 
So the net effect is that what was supposed to cost roughly $50 billion 
has cost us $35 billion. So the farm program is one of the few Federal 
programs that is way under budget and has certainly given the taxpayer 
a tremendous return on investment.
  The other thing that we might want to remember is that during this 
period of time, we have had a tremendous drought in the western part of 
the United States. The drought map has looked something like this for 
about the last 5 years. So interestingly enough, the emergency payments 
for the drought have been included in these farm bill expenditures. In 
the past, in the previous farm bill, when we had a drought or we had 
emergency spending, it was always over and above. But in these cases, 
part of this 13.2 and part of that 10.1 was emergency spending for 
drought. So, again, this has been a very efficient and a very lean 
process, and we think that the farm bill has served a great purpose in 
that sense.
  The other thing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out is that we 
really do not subsidize our farmers anywhere near what some other 
nations do. For instance, the average farm subsidy per acre in the 
United States, according to this farm program, is $38 per acre. The 
European Union's is $295 per acre. So the ratio is about $7 European 
Union for $1 in the United States. Japan subsidizes their agriculture 
$3,655 per acre, a ratio of roughly 100 to one.
  So why in the world would Japan and Europe subsidize agriculture to 
that degree? I think part of the reason is that 60 years ago during 
World War II, they realized how important a food supply was. Their food 
supply was decimated, and when their populace has been hungry, they 
begin to realize that that is something they are going to protect no 
matter what.
  So in summary, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to mention four things 
regarding the farm bill. First of all, farmers plan their operation 
based on the farm bill. They are operating loans. Their land payments 
they have is based on the farm program, and if we start tinkering with 
it, if we start changing the farm bill in mid-course, we really do not 
do them justice. We will write a new farm bill in 2007. If we want to 
make changes, that is certainly the time that we should do that. But we 
should not do it now when they have one set of assumptions and then 
have that changed.
  Secondly, we currently spend only 9 percent of our income in the 
United States on food. This is by far the lowest amount of money that 
people spend, at least proportionate money, that any civilized nation 
or any developed nation in the country, or in the world, spends at the 
present time, only 9 percent.
  And, thirdly, if we fail to protect our food supply, we may see that 
what happens to the food supply would be the same as what happened to 
our petroleum situation. We found suddenly one day that we could 
purchase oil from OPEC at $10, $11 a barrel. We began to quit exploring 
in this country, and we began to purchase oil from OPEC. Now we are 
really 60 percent dependent on overseas sources, and about every 2 or 3 
weeks we have to wait to see what OPEC is going to do to see what is 
going to happen to our fuel prices at the pump. We do not want this to 
happen, certainly, to our food supply.
  So the current farm bill is less expensive than Freedom to Farm. It 
is working well, and I think we should think long and hard before we 
make any mid-course changes.

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