[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 19, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4570-S4571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Farm Bill

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, this is my third year serving on the 
Senate Ag Committee. This is my first time getting to work on a farm 
bill. The farm bill comes around every 5 years. It sets national policy 
on agriculture, nutrition, conservation, and forestry.
  In less than 2 weeks, at the end of this fiscal year, the current 
farm bill will expire.
  In 2018, this bill had a pricetag of $867 billion, right--$867 
billion 5 years ago, in 2018. Now, we used to think that was a lot of 
money, but the upcoming farm bill is almost double that amount at 
roughly $1.5 trillion. This is the first trillion-dollar farm bill in 
our Nation's history.
  The enormous pricetag of the bill is driven by an 84-percent increase 
in SNAP, or Federal nutrition assistance, and a 58-percent increase in 
conservation programs--in other words, a huge increase in welfare and 
climate spending. Most of this new spending does not offer support for 
farmers.
  The $559 billion increase in SNAP funding was done directly by the 
Department of Agriculture through updates to the Thrifty Food Plan. In 
other words, nobody in Congress voted for this. The $35 billion in 
conservation funding was done through the Inflation Reduction Act of 
last year. Democrats are pushing through priorities that cater to 
climate activists and lead Americans to become dependent on welfare 
benefits. Approximately 82 percent of the upcoming farm bill goes to 
SNAP, commonly known as food stamps. Four percent goes to conservation.
  Just yesterday, we hit $33 trillion in debt for this country--yes, I 
said that--$33 trillion. That will be picked up--this tab--by our 
grandkids and their kids.
  This graph here, developed by the Farm Bureau Federation, showcases 
the enormous increase in nutrition spending and the steady decline of 
farm spending over the last 50 years. As you can see, SNAP spending has 
almost doubled what it was 5 years ago. How is this even possible? Has 
poverty doubled in our country in the last 5 years? Of course, it 
hasn't.

  The poverty rate has been between 10 and 20 percent during my 
lifetime--10 to 20 percent. We spent $20 trillion in the war on 
poverty, and we have not even moved the needle. What does that mean? 
That means we are not doing our job. All we are doing is we are paying 
for somebody else to do it. So it doesn't work.
  Yet I never hear my Democratic colleagues consider how we fight 
poverty. We just give out money. If my colleagues on the left cared 
about poverty, then they would want better results. But nobody wants 
better results here. They want votes. Welfare spending--if we would 
ever get it in our heads--welfare spending does not lift people out of 
poverty. Are we ever going to realize that? It simply makes people more 
comfortable remaining in poverty, and that makes it wrong. It makes it 
wrong for this body that we continue down this path of poverty and not 
helping poverty.
  Food stamps are supposed to help people stay afloat while they work 
to become self-sufficient, help them get through tough times--not a 
free walk in society. It should not be an incentive to stay home other 
than to train and want to get a job, but that is exactly what it has 
done. Making someone dependent on government is not helping them; it is 
hurting them.
  The whole purpose of the farm bill is supposed to be to help farmers. 
What an idea. Yet $7 out of $8--$7 out of $8 in the farm bill is for 
something else. Our farmers depend on crop insurance; commodity 
programs such as the Agricultural Risk program--ARC, as we call it--and 
price-loss coverage, which is the PLC program; and disaster programs to 
help them deal with difficult crop yields, markets, and rising input 
costs.
  Farmers can't control the weather or the price, and that is the 
reason they need help. We have to remember farmers put food on the 
table. But there is a lot of people who don't understand that.
  These are some of the hardest working people in America, and they 
have too little to show for it. Back home in my State of Alabama, I 
have heard the struggles facing our row croppers and our specialty crop 
producers. They need help to deal with inflation and rising input 
costs. Farm production costs have increased--have increased 28 percent 
since Joe Biden took office less than 3 years ago. That is 
embarrassing. How in the world can we increase prices 28 percent in 
this country in 2\1/2\ years and expect the people in this country to 
survive, the hard-working people? Farmers included.
  Fuel and fertilizer are 60 percent to 130 percent higher than they 
were in 2021. Folks, we can't survive with that; but my colleagues on 
the left are not even concerned about it--not one bit. We are just 
going to cut back on digging oil and gas and buy it from other 
countries and charge the heck out of taxpayers in the United States of 
America for oil and gas that we can produce here.
  Other farm expenses like land, cash rents, labor, and equipment are 
all adding up. As a result, net farm income is projected to decrease by 
roughly 23 percent this year. Costs are up, incomes are down, and 
farmers are struggling to survive.
  We are on a direct collision in this country of closing our farmers 
out and having to completely depend on other countries for our food and 
other things that we eat. Think about that--completely depend on other 
countries.
  We just found out going through this COVID crisis that we were 
completely dependent on other countries for our drugs. We said: We have 
got to overcome that. We have got to redo that. Now, we are doing the 
same thing to our farmers. We do away with our food, it is over, 
because if you think prices are high now, they will be completely a lot 
higher than they are now.
  The only thing that is keeping our farmers afloat is called the Farm 
Safety Net, but the current support levels for title I commodity 
programs, like cotton, peanuts, and soybeans, are not high enough to 
sustain our farmers over the next 5 years.
  In other words, this safety net is a level of pricing. If the price 
goes under a certain amount, we help our farmers overcome that cutback 
where they can survive. The problem is, that safety net price has not 
risen since 2012. And we don't think the prices haven't gone up? We 
have lost our minds.
  If we don't raise those reference prices--and right now, my 
colleagues on the left don't want to raise our reference prices for 
farmers--we are going to be buying all of our food and everything we 
eat from other countries. It is coming. We have got to raise our 
reference prices.
  We have got to help out our farmers. These programs and these 
reference prices allow farmers to continue clothing, feeding, and 
fueling every citizen in this country and a lot of other countries.
  Now, we don't need to idly sit by while our hard-working producers 
work tirelessly and barely survive under this Joe Biden economy. I ask 
my colleagues--I beg my colleagues--on the left to wake up, open your 
eyes, and support our farmers and fight for this farm bill. Raise the 
reference prices. Help them out. Because if we don't,

[[Page S4571]]

there won't be a need for another farm bill. Our Nation's food security 
is going to depend on it, and the lives of all American citizens are 
going to depend on it.
  I yield the floor.