Date: 1990-04-25
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I thank my distinguished colleague for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman. I will support this resolution. but I have some reservations. Mr. Chairman. this budget resolution is a bitter pill for many of us to swallow. I commend the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee and his colleagues for producing a comprehensive. fiscally responsible budget resolution in a timely manner. I know their job was not easy. I realize the choices made in this document reflect their best judgment on the future budget priorities of our Nation. To their credit. I believe this budget resolution comes closer than any other in recent memory at being honest. Its honest because it seeks to balance the Federal budget by the year 1995 without using the Social Security surplus to mask the true size of the deficit. It is also honest becauseat least in the outyears--it uses more realistic assumptions than the overly optimistic ones supplied by the Office of Management and Budget. Hopefully. this will provide more reliability to this budget plan than we have seen with its predecessors. Perhaps we can really reduce the Federal deficit without having it pop back up when warm and fuzzy assumptions become cold economic realities. The 5year reconciliation proposed in this budget resolution will enforce discipline on Congress to continue fiscal responsibility in the outyears and reduce the Federal deficit. This budget resolution recognizes our Nations need to increase our commitment toward education. infrastructure. competitiveness. crime. drugs and child care. More than $6 billion in new spending is proposed in these areas for fiscal 1991. going up to nearly $29 billion by fiscal 1995. However. I must ask the question: Where is this money coming from? Mr. Chairman. the answer is that a good size chunk of it is coming out of agricultural programs. plain and simple. This budget resolution calls on the Agriculture Committee to reduce farm program spending by $900 million. 8.5 percent this year. $1.7 billion. 15 percent in fiscal 1992. and $2 billion each year thereafter. In those outyears. we are talking about reducing farm program spending by about 20 percent a year. What other program is being asked to bear this large and disproportionate share of cut. This is a prescription for economic disaster for our Nations farmers. Farm program costs are less than 1 percent of the Federal budget. They are projected to decline to less than twothirds of 1 percent by 1995. The actual costs of farm programs is projected to decline by 15 percent between 1992 and 1995. Agriculture budget projections do not. receive any adjustment for inflation that funding projection for appropriated programs and indexed entitlement programs receive. like food stamps and Social Security. In fact. the projected spending for one commodity program is based on an expected price support reduction of 15 percent from 1990 to 1995. I agree with the need for new initiatives proposed in this budget resolution. but rural America has needs too. Committee members are currently working on the development of a new viable crop insurance program that can provide our farmers with an acceptable risk management tool to deal with the weatherrelated disasters. Hopefully. it will avert the need for future ad hoc disaster legislation. Committee members are working on new and innovative ways to further our Nations conservation and environmental goals. We have pressing needs in the areas of rural economic development and food safety which we have or will soon address. We expect to fund these new initiatives from within our existing allocation. We did not come to the well here to beg for money. All we have asked is that we be allowed to have enough funding to operate our Nations vital farm programs effectively. Since I became chairman in 1981. the Agriculture Committee has complied with each budget resolution and has done its part to help our Federal Government put its fiscal house in order. We have reduced farm program spending authority by $33 billion over those years. We did that at the very time Americas farmers went through some of the worst economic times rural America has faced since the 1930s. Mr. Chairman. the easy thing would be for me to oppose this resolution. It is terribly unfair to our Nations farmers. In the outyears. this budget resolution threatens to undermine the delicate recovery occurring in the agricultural economy. But I will not oppose this budget resolution. I will swallow this bitter pill. This is an extremely difficult vote for me as I imagine it will be for many other Members who care about Americas family farmers and ranchers. I would ask my colleagues to remember agricultures contributions to deficit reductionpast. present and futureas this resolution moves through the legislative process. I hope an opportunity arises to ameliorate the treatment of agriculture under the budget. At the very least. I ask my colleagues to remember agricultures contribution to deficit reduction when the Agriculture Committee brings the farm bill to the floor later this year.