MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for his great leadership on this issue and all over here.

Senator Roberts--the longtime chairman of the Senate Ag Committee and before that, the House Ag Committee--was very instrumental in our getting a farm bill in late 2018--a farm bill which provides a safety net and provides a little bit of stability in agriculture, which, as he pointed out, has been just in the tank literally since 2013.

Our producers, farmers, and ranchers across the country and in South Dakota have been operating with negative cash flows, eating into their equity, and trying to keep their operations viable, and that was before COVID-19. Now we have COVID-19, and we saw the bottom fall out of the cattle market in this country.

I don't have to tell the Presiding Officer that agriculture is important. It is the lifeblood of our economy in South Dakota. It is our No. 1 industry. But that ripple effect is felt all across the country. It is our food supply. Senator Hoeven talked earlier today about the importance of ensuring that we maintain a safe, quality, predictable, and affordable food supply for people in this country, particularly when people are concerned in a time of crisis. We need to maintain that food supply. So I want to thank him and all of our colleagues here from farm country for working together to provide some assistance in this particular bill, which would hopefully give some relief for those who are out there, day in and day out, grinding it out to make sure we have the food and fiber to keep this country going and, for that matter, to feed the world.

Unfortunately, again, Senate Democrats don't seem willing to do that. I was encouraged to hear just a little bit ago from my friend from West Virginia, who is an advocate for agriculture. We also had the ranking member of the Ag Committee down here earlier, saying she is willing to work with us. But, unfortunately, we don't have time to waste. We don't have time to waste. This isn't something that can be put off to another day. We have producers that, if we don't do something, we are going to leave them behind, and we need our Democratic colleagues to step up and help get this bill passed.

As Senator Hoeven mentioned, the bill would provide $30 billion to replenish the Commodity Credit Corporation, and it has a temporary funding increase of an additional $20 billion in CCC funding to address the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19. This funding would allow the Department of Agriculture to quickly get assistance to farmers and ranchers throughout America who are facing market volatility and declining pricing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Farmers and ranchers, I might add, as I already mentioned, were already dealing with a weak ag economy well before this emergency hit.

I spoke with the Secretary of Agriculture a couple of days ago and conveyed to him the incredible amount of hardship and economic pain that is being created across the farm belt these days, particularly with our cattle ranchers, and the pain they are feeling as a result of these declining prices and what it might mean to their operations.

So I would simply say, in supporting all of my colleagues in what they said today, that we don't know the full impact of this outbreak across the agricultural industry, but we do know this: Our producers are doing their part to keep the grocery shelves stocked and food on our tables, and we need to do our part in providing the resources necessary to support them, which is why it is so important for many of the reasons we talked about earlier today to get on this legislation and get it moving.

The national economy is melting down, and, of course, as I said, in the economy out in farm country, it was happening well before the national economy. But if we don't do something to stop the bleeding and do it soon, there is going to be a whole world of hurt. Let's get this bill across the finish line. We need help from our Democratic colleagues to do that.

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