[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9756]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 AGRICULTURE REFORM, FOOD, AND JOBS ACT

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I could not support Senate passage of S. 
3240, the ``2012 Farm Bill.'' CBO estimates the Senate's Farm Bill will 
consume a colossal amount of taxpayer dollars--at least $966 billion 
over 10 years. While I agree that we need nutrition programs to assist 
low-income families as well as programs to ensure farmers receive a 
fair return on their labors, the fact remains we are living in an era 
of crushing national debt and runaway government spending. Ultimately, 
the American people, both farmers and consumers, lose under this bill.
  Farm Bill programs are ripe for reform. Unfortunately, we rejected 
amendments to fix USDA's sugar programs which cost American consumers 
$3 billion annually in artificially high sugar prices. We created 
several new so-called ``shallow-loss'' subsidy programs, which could 
balloon to $14 billion each year if crop prices drop from today's 
record high levels and return to average prices. We implemented a new 
$3 billion cotton program that may exacerbate our ongoing trade dispute 
at the World Trade Organization. We could have eliminated the outdated 
mohair subsidies, but didn't, and wound up creating several new and 
unnecessary subsidy programs for products like popcorn and maple syrup. 
We've made some progress on imposing stricter payment limits on 
subsidies and we eliminated wasteful and duplicative USDA programs like 
the Catfish Inspection Office. Unfortunately, much more remains to be 
fixed in the Senate's farm bill before I could support it.

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