[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 31 (Monday, August 9, 1999)]
[Page 1535]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Radio Remarks on Farm Aid

July 31, 1999

    As America's farmers look ahead to this year's harvest, what should 
be a time of reward and satisfaction is instead becoming a time of 
disappointment and for some, for too many, a time of ruin.
    From dropping crop prices to diminishing foreign markets to 
devastating droughts in some parts of the country, many of our farmers 
and ranchers are facing the worst crisis in a decade. My administration 
has done what we can to ease this crisis, from increasing our food 
purchases for humanitarian aid around the world, to speeding up farm 
program payments, to ensuring $6 billion in emergency aid last year to 
help farmers in need. To really help our farmers and ranchers, we have 
to fix the underlying problem.
    Let's just face it: the 1996 farm bill simply does not do enough to 
help our farmers and ranchers cope in hard times. It doesn't give me or 
the United States Department of Agriculture the tools we need to help 
farmers and ranchers thrive over the long term--from providing critical 
income assistance to farmers who need it most in bad years, to making it 
easier for farmers to buy crop insurance and improving our crop 
insurance program, to continuing our efforts to expand markets abroad 
and ensure fair practices here at home. That's the right way to help our 
farmers and ranchers over the long term.
    I am committed to working with Congress to provide the resources to 
help our farmers and ranchers by dealing with today's crisis and by 
fixing the farm bill for the future. We must do so in a way that 
maintains the fiscal discipline that has created our prosperity and that 
now makes it possible for us to save Social Security, to strengthen and 
modernize Medicare with a prescription drug benefit, and to pay off our 
national debt, guaranteeing our long-term financial prosperity. These 
things are good for America's farming and ranching families, too, and 
they're good for all Americans.

Note: The address was recorded at approximately 10 p.m. on July 30 
aboard Air Force One at Aviano Air Force Base, Italy, for later 
broadcast. This transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on July 31. The President's remarks were made available on the 
White House Press Office Radio Actuality Line. A tape was not available 
for verification of the content of these remarks.