Thursday, August 09, 2012
 
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Schock responds to questions about the farm bill

Congressman Aaron Schock hosts ag summit at Lincoln College, Part 3

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[August 09, 2012]  Tuesday morning at the end of the ag summit at Lincoln College's Lincoln Center, U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock took the podium to answer questions from the audience on the topics of their choice.

A question or more over a commentary came from a member of the audience regarding the new farm bill and the presentation by U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas of the House Ag Committee.

The speaker from the audience began by saying he was disappointed to hear Lucas speak negatively about freshmen congressmen.

He said to Lucas: "You were a freshman at one time, and I was happy to see you there."

He said that in 1994 the freshmen in Congress got a lot accomplished. He went on to say that the freshmen and sophomore congressmen today are not the ones who created the deficit.

The speaker went on to address welfare and said that as a farmer himself, he considered farm-direct payments from the government as welfare.

He also said the American farmer could survive without these payments, and if they couldn't stand the heat, they could get out of the kitchen.

"What we need is freedom from the government," he told Schock.

He also noted: "Let some of them fail, like all the other businesses in our country."

Schock finally responded: "So what is your question? I don't want to cut you off, but if you have a question I'd be happy to answer it."

The man in the audience said he understood there are fewer rural congressmen, but that they couldn't fix the system when they have people on one side of the aisle saying, "We want more food stamps," and people on the other side saying, "We want more direct payments."

Schock again asked him to pose a question, and the gentleman replied that he wanted to know why the government couldn't get rid of the welfare on both sides of the aisle.

Schock responded first by saying he thought it would be extremely difficult to separate the food stamp portion from the ag portion of the farm bill.

He also thought the rhetorical question would be: "Do you think our country needs some type of food stamp program?"

Beyond the answer to that question, he said the natural political reality of the situation is that the two are tied together because they are consumption and production.

He understood that most don't see it that way because they look at their own point of view. He said the food stamp people don't know why they are with the farm bill, but there are also those who don't know where their food comes from.

"I've had people tell me my food comes from the grocery store," he said.

Schock said what Lucas talked about with the problems in the food stamp program is just a small part of it. However, he said that when trying to initiate food stamp reform, "people look at you like you are stealing food from starving babies."

On the other side of the question, doing away with direct payments to farmers, Schock said he supported that.

He said getting rid of direct payments would be good policy and that his farmers tell him that is what they want.

He said when he goes to Washington, though, and tells Lucas, "'All my farmers want is crop insurance,' he says to me, 'What do you think crop insurance is? That is a welfare program as well.'"

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Schock said that if he would bring in the independent agents who represent crop insurance, they would tell you their companies could not provide the insurance without the federal government backing it up financially.

Schock said part of the problem is that everyone wants less government except for their government.

"The nastiness of the sausage making is trying to get the leanest sausage you can. If we're going to look at the food stamp program and say we're going to help people who are poor and hungry, how do we make sure the money is going to the poor and hungry. If we're going to do a crop insurance program, how do we make sure there is not a lot of fat in that crop insurance program and that it makes the most sense for the producer and the insurers? And the same thing with the direct payment program."

Schock said he would vote for a farm bill tomorrow that had no direct payments in it. But there are others who would say they need that funding and they need to be able to spend it in a way that will help their constituents.

Schock said the beauty of his job is that if he could wait for a perfect bill, he would never get to vote on a single bill.

"What we're trying to do is get the best possible accomplished, and I think we're making progress, considering who is in the White House and who controls the Senate, to get a bill out of committee -- a bipartisan vote that cut $16 billion from the food stamp program. Because even the people on the far left can hardly argue against people getting food stamps who are wealthy and have significant assets. I think we're making progress. If I were a king instead of a congressman, I could do what you want a lot quicker."

Schock concluded this portion of the discussions by addressing the gentleman's remarks about freshmen congressmen.

"I agree that turnover is good," Schock continued. "What chairman Lucas was suggesting was not that he doesn't like working with the freshman and sophomores, but that it takes more time to get it done when half of the committee was not there two years ago. You are now educating a class of folks whom the majority of them don't come from ag districts. So it is harder to pass the bill. But this bill that passed with half of them new, and it passed with an overwhelming margin."

The Q-and-A session with Schock lasted almost a full hour. In future segments of this series, more of those questions and answers will be included.

[By NILA SMITH]]

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