Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to introduce a piece of legislation that I have introduced many times in past Congresses. I have made some progress on the goals I seek but have not gotten 100 percent finality of the policies I want. I am always able to do this with a bipartisan piece of legislation.

Today, I present this with Senator Johnson of South Dakota. I will let Senator Johnson speak for himself, but I want to give the reasons I am introducing this bill in my remarks. First, I want people to know this deals with farm policy, and on farm policy the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, and I agree on most everything.

Mr. President, this is a piece of legislation that is probably going to come up not so much as a stand-alone, as when we discuss the reauthorization of the farm bill--which generally could start this year and probably go into next year--but as an effort that I am not going to give up on. It deals with the issue of how much one individual farmer should get from the farm program. My approach is to put what one might call a hard cap on the amount of money that one farmer can get, and my remarks will explain why.

Also, though, at a time when we have great budget deficits, people might think I am introducing this bill just because I am concerned about the budget deficit. It is true this bill, if enacted, will save about $1.5 billion, but that is not my main purpose for doing it. My main purpose is to have the historical basis for a safety net for farmers; to espouse the principle that our safety net ought to be targeted toward small- and medium-sized farmers. So today, Senator Johnson and I are introducing the Rural America Preservation Act.

America's farmers produce the food that feed our families. The bill helps ensure that our farmers are able to provide a safe, abundant, and inexpensive food supply for consumers around the world while maintaining the safety net that allows small- and medium-sized farmers to get through tough times.

Everybody sees tough times that are out of their control, but the importance of the farm safety net can be seen no further than the dinner table each of us sits around, as recently as last night. Stop to think what you would do if you were unable to feed your children for 3 days. There is an old adage that says something like this: You are only nine meals away from a revolution. Maybe in those circumstances, if you love your children--and maybe you wouldn't think this could happen to you because we have such an abundance of food in America, but we are all aware of the fact a lot of countries do have food riots when there is a shortage of food--you might do just about anything--steal, riot, whatever it takes--to give your children the food you want them to have to keep them alive after not having food for 3 straight days.

So the cohesion within our society, the social cohesion, that is one of the reasons it is vitally important we maintain a farm program that will make sure there is a readily available food supply.

Another reason I am not going to go into in these remarks is that food is very essential to the national security of our country--in other words, the defense of our country. All we have to do is rely upon an old adage Napoleon used to use: An army marches on its belly. More recently, however, we can look at the farm programs in Germany and Japan where they recall the mistakes made in their war effort during World War II--and, thank God, they didn't succeed--when they did not have enough food for their military people. So I also want to think in terms of a sure supply of food not only for social cohesion but also for national security purposes.

To ensure the family farmer remains able to produce a food supply for this cohesive and stable society that I have talked about, we need to get the farm safety net back to its original intent--to help small- and medium-sized farmers get over the ups and downs of farming that are out of their control. As an example, it could be a natural disaster, it could be grain embargoes such as those put on by the President of the United States, it could be the situation where President Nixon froze the price of beef and ruined the beef industry in the Midwest.

The original intent of the Federal farm program was not to help a farmer get bigger and bigger. But the safety net has veered sharply off course, and that is why I talk about the necessity for a hard cap on any one farmer getting help from the farm program. We are now seeing 10 percent of the largest farmers actually getting nearly 70 percent of the total farm program payments coming out of the Treasury of the United States.

There is no problem with a farmer growing larger in his operation. Let me make that clear. If you want to get bigger and bigger in America, that is an American right to do so. But the taxpayers should not have to subsidize that effort, and that is what is happening today. There comes a point where some farms reach levels that allow them to weather the tough financial times on their own. Smaller farmers do not have that same luxury, and these same small farmers play a pivotal role in producing the Nation's food.

I have been approached time and time again by farmers concerned about where the next generation of farmers will come from when the price of farmland is shooting up or the price of cash rent is shooting up, particularly when the Federal taxpayers are subsidizing that effort. It is important that we keep young people on the farm so they can take the lead in producing our food when the older generation of farmers is ready to turn over the reins. But the current policies that allow 10 percent of the largest farmers to receive nearly 70 percent of the total farm program payments creates a real barrier for beginning and small farmers.

The current system puts upward pressure on land prices, making it more difficult for small and beginning farmers to buy a farm or to afford the cash rent. This allows the big farmers to get even bigger, and this is not unique to my State of Iowa. I am sure it is not unique to the State of South Dakota, where my cosponsor friend, Senator Johnson, comes from. This upward pressure on land prices is occurring in many States. It is simply good policy to have a hard cap on the amount a single farmer can receive in the farm program payments. We will keep in place a much needed safety net for the farmers who need it the most, and it will help reduce the negative impact farm payments can have on land prices and cash rent.

Our bill sets the overall cap at $250,000 for married couples. Now, people listening in the Senate, or people listening back home on television, probably think it is outrageous to have a figure that high and call it a hard cap. But this is something that is national policy and may not be applicable just to my State, so it is necessary to reach some sort of common ground in the Congress. I recognize that agriculture can look different around the country, so this is a compromise.

Just as important as setting the payment limits is the tightening of the meaning of "actively engaged.'' I will not go in depth as to what actively engaged is about at this point, but it generally means, if you are a farmer, you ought to be a farmer and not a city slicker from New York City benefiting from the farm program. This will help make sure that farm payments only go to those who deserve them.

In light of the current budget discussions, everyone should agree that we don't want money going to those who fail to meet the criteria set for the program. This bill will help do that.

I hope my colleagues will agree this bill takes a common sense approach to improve our farm safety net, and a help to make sure the dollars spent go to those who need it most.

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