[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8910-8911]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                          OPPOSE THE FARM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, tomorrow we're going to be voting on a very 
important piece of legislation. This is the farm bill, something that 
we reauthorize every 5 years or so, and I would have hoped that we 
could have a good debate tomorrow. But I just learned a few minutes ago 
that the bill will come to the floor under a structured rule which will 
not allow anybody opposed to the bill to claim time in opposition.
  So, if you can believe this, this is one of the most expensive, most 
important pieces of legislation to come before this body in years, and 
it will come to the floor under a structured rule that does not allow 
those opposed to the rule to claim time in opposition. This is a bill 
that the President has said that he will veto. This is a bill that has 
opposition. But those who favor this farm bill do not want those who 
oppose the bill to be heard. Imagine that.
  There is time under the rule, as with any bill that comes to the 
floor, for what's called general debate. If you can think of this, 
general debate tomorrow will mean that time will simply be split 
between the majority party, which favors the bill, and those on the 
minority party who also favor the bill. If you oppose the bill, you 
cannot claim time in opposition, and you must go and get time, which 
you may or may not be able to get from your respective party officials 
or those who are controlling the time.
  That is simply wrong. We shouldn't run the House this way, under 
Republicans or Democrats. A bill of this importance should be debated, 
should be debated fully.
  Let me explain a few parts of the bill that I think led to the 
decision to make this a structured rule where those opposed to the bill 
cannot claim time in opposition.
  We have said we had heard that we were going to have some reform in 
this farm bill. Those who are on farms making millions of dollars on 
farms in the past have been able to claim massive subsidies. We were 
told that this was going to change. In fact, what the President said is 
that we should have a limit of $200,000 adjusted gross income, or AGI. 
Anything above that and you should not be able to receive subsidies. 
That sounds reasonable.
  But instead, in this piece of legislation, you can make in farm 
income $750,000 in adjusted gross income. As an individual, a single 
farmer can make that. Remember, that's adjusted gross income. That's 
your income minus expenses. That's after all expenses are taken out. 
You can still make as a single farmer $750,000 and receive subsidies. 
If you're married and you structure it properly, your spouse can also 
make $750,000. That means you can have adjusted gross income as a 
couple of $1.5 million and still receive thousands and thousands and 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidy payments from your 
government.
  What's more, if you're a farmer and the farmer's spouse making up to 
$1.5

[[Page 8911]]

million in adjusted gross income, if you have non-farm income, that can 
amount to $500,000 in addition, and then if your spouse has non-farm 
income, that's another $500,000. So you can have a couple making $2.5 
million in adjusted gross income. Again, adjusted gross income is your 
income minus your expenses.
  People will point out farming's an expensive venture. There are a lot 
of expenses, but those are taken out, and you can still have adjusted 
gross income of $2.5 million and collect subsidies under this bill. Is 
it any wonder that those who favor this farm bill didn't want anybody 
to be able to claim time in opposition to the bill tomorrow when we 
debate it?
  A few other things that should be discussed here. I should mention 
that over the past couple of years, since we passed the last farm bill, 
farm incomes have shattered all kinds of records. We have net farm 
income that will reach $92.3 billion in 2008. That's a 56 percent 
increase over 2006.
  Average household farm income significantly exceeds the national 
average. In fact, average household income for farmers is $89,434. Why 
do we have these kind of subsidies for those who are far better off 
than the average American? It simply doesn't make sense.
  There are also some pretty severe budget gimmicks in this bill to 
make it look like it's coming in under budget when it really isn't. The 
Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, identified numerous gimmicks in 
both the House and the Senate versions of the bill that, for example, 
they shift costs outside the 10-year window and unrealistically assume 
that some of these programs will be ended in 5 years, and we know that 
they won't, just to fit them under the budget window.
  Also under this legislation, for the first time that I've seen this, 
those writing the bill were able to go baseline shopping where you 
basically say I don't like this year's baseline funding or baseline 
limit so I'm going to go off last year's baseline limit; that will 
allow me to spend more. It's like if I were filling out my taxes and I 
said, well, you know, I could pay less if I claimed last year's income 
instead of this year's and I would be able to choose that.
  That's what the sponsors of this legislation have done. They've 
shopped for a cheaper baseline so they could fit more spending. That 
gimmick should be exposed, and it's no wonder they didn't want anybody 
to claim time in opposition.
  Madam Speaker, I don't know how anybody in America thinks that we're 
going to be serious enough to address the entitlement problem we have 
in this country with Social Security and Medicare if we can't say no to 
millionaire farmers. How will we ever address entitlements if we can't 
say no to millionaire farmers?

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