Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007 -- Continued
Floor Speech
FARM, NUTRITION, AND BIOENERGY ACT OF 2007--Continued -- (Senate - December 13, 2007)
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, why are we here today? We are here today because we are writing a farm bill. We do that every 5 years--1,360 pages. Why are we doing this? We are doing this because in 1932 a President named Franklin Delano Roosevelt looked out at the farmers of America and said: We have a serious problem. These poor people are going bankrupt and losing their farms because of circumstances beyond their control, because of weather, because of terrible prices. He said: We are going to step in as a government and make a difference. We are going to provide a safety net so that families who are farming do not lose their farms. Thank God he did it, and thank goodness we continue this tradition through this farm bill.
Every time we argue or debate a bill such as this, we debate it in the poetry of family farms and the heart of American values. But when you take a look inside this bill, you will not find poetry; you will find the prose of corporate farming and people who have decided to use this farm bill to make a fortune. That is the reality.
Many of these so-called farmers are more adept at reaping Federal checks than they are reaping and harvesting any crop known to man. Is what they are doing illegal? No. This bill makes it legal, legal for them to use these Federal farm programs, designed to help the struggling farmers, to make a fortune personally.
I listened to Senator Chambliss talk about the struggling farmers with dirt under their fingernails. Listen, many of the people who are making a fortune off of this farm bill end up at the end of the day with the ink from corporate annual reports on their hands and no dirt under their fingernails--trust me. What Senator Klobuchar and myself and Senator Brown are trying to say is, shouldn't there be a bottom line where you say: Listen, you are doing quite well in life; the Federal Government is no longer going to subsidize you.
Here is the bottom line. If your adjusted gross income is over $750,000 a year, we say: You are on your own. Good luck. We hope life continues to be very good to you. And we go on to say that the income limit for those who earn less than 66 percent of that income from farming would be $250,000. We will give no more than a quarter of a million dollars of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars to those who are doing very well in life.
Is that an unreasonable standard? At a time when we are waging a war at $14 billion a month, that we do not pay for; at a time that we cannot fund our schools under No Child Left Behind; when this President will not increase Federal research to find cures for diseases facing American families, is it unreasonable to say we should have limits to the amount of money we should pay those who call themselves farmers but, in fact, are just investors?
I do not think it is unreasonable. This amendment is the same as the issue I raised this morning. This morning, by one vote, the Senate decided to continue the subsidy to oil companies in America making record-breaking profits.
The question on this amendment is, Will we continue to subsidize the rich who are using the farm program to get richer?
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the bipartisan Brown-Sununu-McCaskill RESCU amendment.
This amendment significantly improves the way we target Federal resources to agriculture--eliminating waste and providing additional investments in important programs. The amendment also redirects hundreds of millions of dollars into deficit reduction that would otherwise subsidize large insurance companies.
As my colleague, Senator Brown, points out, in the last 7 years crop insurance companies have received 40 cents out of every dollar that Congress has appropriated for the crop insurance program--that is $9 billion out $19 billion for the program. This is billions of dollars meant for farmers that ended up in the pockets of insurance companies. The Brown amendment cuts $2 billion of that spending by lowering the subsidy rate for insurers.
Currently, that subsidy is calculated based on crop prices. As crop prices rise, so does the subsidy--even though the work burden stays the same. Rising commodity prices have driven up premiums so that these subsidies are now over three times what they were 10 years ago, even though the cost of administering the policies has stayed the same.
In other words, it makes no sense.
This amendment reduces the reimbursement rate to the 2004-2006 national per policy average. This level is still higher than any year prior to 2006 and is quite fair to the companies.
A recent GAO report showed that compared to other insurance sectors, crop insurance companies earn profits that are more than double industry averages. I don't have a problem with industry profits, but I don't think those profits should come right out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers.
This amendment would require that insurers share a portion of their underwriting gains or losses with Federal taxpayers by increasing the Federal share of risk from 5 percent to 15 percent.
The $2 billion in savings would fund over $1 billion in improvements to the Food Stamp Program, $400 million for conservation programs, $200 million for the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, and over $600 million for deficit reduction.
Through these changes, we will be able to conserve soil and water quality on millions of acres of farmland, provide real food benefits to a countless number of less fortunate Americans, and make a significant investment in the lives of millions of children from some of the poorest corners of the world.
Farmers will not pay more for crop insurance. This amendment does not reduce premium subsidies to farmers. Premium subsidies are set by law. This amendment does not change them.
I thank my colleagues, Senators Brown and McCaskill, for their hard work assembling this language.
Now, let me just say a few words about the McGovern-Dole Program, which would enjoy increased funding under this amendment.
The amendment would provide enough mandatory money for the McGovern-Dole International School Feeding Program to provide nutritious meals to millions of children each year who would otherwise go hungry.
The McGovern-Dole Program is based on a simple idea that I first read about in an op-ed written by former Senator George McGovern in 2000. The op-ed was titled ``Too Many Children Are Hungry. Time for Lunch,'' and it argued that the fastest way to alleviate poverty in less developed countries is to provide healthy, nutritious meals to children attending school. The principle is simple--by linking school attendance with nutritious meals, you provide an incentive for families to send their children to school to become educated, rather than keeping them at home to work. And as children become more educated and better fed, they grow up smarter, stronger, and better able to earn a living and make positive contributions to their societies.
The statistics are startling. Since it was founded in 2000 by President Clinton as the Global Food for Education Initiative, GFEI, the program has provided healthy meals to more than 26 million boys and girls in 41 countries around the world. Through the program, American-grown wheat, rice, peas, corn, and other crops have been provided to young children in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Chad, Nicaragua, Nepal, and Senegal. More than 500,000 metric tons of commodities have been distributed since the program's inception.
In communities that have benefited from the McGovern-Dole Program, school attendance rates have increased 14 percent on average and 17 percent for girls compared to similar communities that have not benefited from the program. What is even more amazing than the statistics are the stories about what this program enables in some of the world's poorest communities.
Take my friend Paul Tergat. Paul Tergat is the current world record holder in the marathon. He ran the 26.2 mile race in 2 hours 4 minutes. When Paul was a child living in Kenya, he received free lunches through a World Food Program school feeding program. Without the program, he says he would not have been able to go to school because his parents were too poor. He says it is likely he never would have trained to become an athlete were it not for the generosity of the program.
Like many of my colleagues, I have seen school feeding programs like these in person, and I can tell you they have a transformative effect. I saw the program when I traveled to Kibera in Kenya--it is one of the world's largest slums. Over 1 million people. It is the slum that you see if you have ever watched the film ``The Constant Gardener.'' When you visit, there are people as far as the eye can see, kids playing in the streets, in railway yards, everywhere.
We visited a school in Kibera and saw a feeding program in action. At lunch time, the students were provided with what looked like gruel or porridge--it was a highly nutritious enriched food provided thanks to the productivity of U.S. farmers and the generosity of U.S. taxpayers. The children stood in line patiently, and you could just tell this was going to be their one meal of the day. And they were there in school so they could get that meal. It is these types of stories that make you a believer in the power of school feeding programs. This program is transformative in the lives of vulnerable children around the world. And it promotes U.S. interests around the world. Delivering bags of food labeled as gifts of the people of the United States is a public diplomacy tool that demonstrates the good will and generosity of the American people. It represents the best of our values, and it tells people all over the world who we are and what America stands for. Imagine the possibilities for shaping perceptions of the United States if we significantly increase our investment in the McGovern-Dole Program--the millions more children we could touch at an early, impressionable age and give the most basic gift of a healthy, nutritious childhood.
The McGovern-Dole Program is also good for American farmers and the agriculture industry. In 2005, the program distributed approximately 120,000 metric tons of U.S. commodities. The McGovern-Dole Program is also good for related industries, including processors, millers, packagers, freight forwarders and shippers, as well as U.S. port facilities.
The program serves as one more market for U.S. commodities, which is one reason the program has the support of a wide range of industry groups, including the American Soybean Association, the North American Millers Association, and the National Farmers Union.
This is a strong amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes.
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