Bloomberg news and ed okeefe of the washington post. You seem poised to see the passage of a piece of work for user several years. There was a rejection of the house last year. A lot of negotiations back and forth and it seems like with each of these bills that gets passed, there is a bigger chorus of people who say that farm subsidies are too generous. Now there is criticism of the food stamp program. Is this the last farm bill you see being passed this way . Is the split in the house last year a foretaste of farm bill come . Estion mar we all have a stake in having safe food. We have people who get up every day and fight the weather. No be else has to worry in their business of whether they will be wiped out by drought. We have a joint stake, both families, farmers, and consumers foodving in Agricultural Supply policy. I am proud that this is a farm bill for the future and not the past. We have been talking about that we should not beginning farm subsidies to farmers when prices are high. You should not get a check because you plant something. That is gone. Get a billrmers will for Crop Insurance instead of a check. Thereill get help only if is a weather disaster or if there is a market disaster. , theyy have a disaster will be able to get help like any other insurance. It will cover 65 to 75 of their loss. Farmers will be paying thousands of dollars in Crop Insurance and get nothing in an individual year. This is different. The other thing i am proud of as someone who represents a state who grows a lot of fruits and vegetables, we have a rigorous effort on Research Supporting growers. We are putting four times more money in farmers markets than ever before. This is the strongest effort for organic, which is part of the future. We have communities where there are lots of Small Farmers and they want to band together and sell locally to restaurants or schools or hospitals, we have created local food hubs. There are many things in here that have changed the paradox. We support local agriculture in a way that supports Risk Management but does it in a way that is good for taxpayers and good for families. The next move is other ortunities of small forms farms that will allow us to promote healthy fruits and vegetables that we need to be eating and all of the other farmers in the country. There are so may things packed in this piece of legislation. We want to ask you about a few of them. We want to ask you about the supplemental nutrition assistance program, mostly known as food stamps. Viewers howain to exactly these cuts are being made . It is one of the leading things coming out of this bill, you are making 8 billion in cuts to food steps. How is it being done . And how are people going to be affected . Would me say that i tackle abuse. A tight system already, very low error rate on anything in that i am willing to do. Im not willing to change eligibility or hurt people who need food help. I have people in michigan who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and paid taxes all their lives. I am they are mortified that they need help. It is temporary health. The average person goes on Food Assistance for 10 months or less. I would never do anything to hurt them. The house passed policies that would have literally eliminated millions of people from getting help. People just like the people in michigan. I said no to that. Fore is an area where wellmeaning purposes we have states getting more of Food Assistance. They stretch things. It they allow it to Food Assistance. Peopletates have allowed without a utility bill to be able to get credit for having a utility bill. One have been giving people dollar in help a year. They have been able to get extra help, even when they do not have a utility bill. I want to give these people extra help. I wish we couldve done more in the farm bill to increase that help. It is not possible given the house of representatives. We only made one change in the whole thing. We did not do anything that the house of representatives had passed. Have 20 or more in feeding help a year, nothing changes for you. You get this heating deduction. If you have less than 20 a year that you are receiving, you have to produce the utility bill to get a credit. People who aree renters who do not have the ability to show they have up utility payments. To ane made a commitment Outreach Program that will help people show that they have heat as part of their rent. Cannot look at somebody with a straight face and say it is ok for somebody to get a utility credit if they do not have a utility bill. That is the change we made. When we did the dairy reform, one of the great things that we , the usda can now buy milk for programs for children and the needy and for food banks. We have increased the money to food banks and have said if you buy fresh fruits and vegetables with your Food Assistance money, we will give you double the value of the Food Assistance. We want people to be able to buy healthy food for their family. That is some of what we have done to support our families. You agree with the estimates . It will affect 800,000 to 900,000 households. If we are able to address renters, i expect it to be less. Spent days diving into this legislation. They did not find many red flags. They are concerned about one thing. There is a provision that would require the disclosure of lawmakers and other officials who received farm subsidies, that was removed from the bill. Do you have any sense of why . It was not removed from the bill. It was not in the senate bill. It was in the house bill. The decision was made that we already have Financial Disclosure forms as to where we get our incomes. This is done through other committees and ethics committees and rules committees. This is beyond our jurisdiction. We indicated that if there is anything to be done there, that should be done over there. I support that. But we already have to disclose where our income comes from. Anybody been nominated has to do it. Disclosures, do you have to report that you have farm subsidies . You have to report your income and where it comes from. The detail would be very different. Financiale on the disclosure form. We have gone through these forms. If you have a question about where your income is six think. You have a very specific information. It seems to be a stepping back from transparency. I like to follow this up further. Sayet me to stop you and that was not in the house version. I would support doing more on. It was not something that it was done in this bill. Understood. Otherar this echoed in debates. Voices inside agriculture versus voices outside agriculture. Subsidies reported by a former is not popular with farmers. No one likes having their income put into a database. But it is taxpayer money. Senate had lower subsidy caps than what came out in the final agreement. When you look at some of these issues that go on financially, especially when farm income is at a record, you have watched drug watchdog groups saying it why cannot we track these dollars . Im glad to respond. People do not know that we are not doing subsidies anymore. Insurancee doing which we share the cost in and disaster or help in if there is a market loss. There are target prices. Not cornu do parses prices are high right now. You do not have a weather disaster, you get zero. More billion air farmers. If you are a millionaire you dont qualify. We passed for the First Time Ever and overall cap on the commodity title, even though you do not get help unless there is a loss. Was an overall cap on both what you can receive loans. Arget prices or it was 125,000 total. He cap each area separately. We kept the overall cap, which is the First Time Ever we have cap loans. Cap, we of the overall lacked flexibility. If you want a higher loan, you get lower payment limits. If you want higher payout payment limits, you get lower loans. I understand all of this is very complicated. The people who should look at this are looking at it through the old lens. What i am saying to people is this is a new day. This is not a bait and switch shuffle. We are fundamentally saying we are not paying farmers just because they grow corn or wheat and rice and so on. Or youe to buy insurance are covered up to a certain point. If you have a loss that is a 500,000 loss under a commodity title, the most you could receive is 125,000. You cannot get a dollar unless you have a loss. I am happy to talk to anyone on this. T is a different day i am not saying this is perfect. Is 12 different bills hooked together. Titlen the commodities for the first time we have a conservation title spending more than a commodities title. We are fundamentally shifting to investments in land and supporting farmers through supporting people who have not had a lot of support like food and Vegetable Growers and organic farmers. There is nothing that everyone will agree with. One of the lastminute battles was over meat labels. We have a regime in the United States where meet needs to be labeled by country of origin. Responded. S a lot of meatpackers would like to see a relief on these labels so they do not have this requirement. There was a push to get it changed. The language was not changed. They will continue to fight this and it will continue to be fought. There is going to be more wto action. How do you see this progressing and the months and years ahead . We have a First Time Ever permit livestock Disaster Assistance program in this bill. That was a number one priority. We have gone on to have rigorous support for exports. Is a most significant investment in support of the livestock community. Youre right. Decidedast minute, they to switch to something else. This was in neither bill. Labeling meat. There was not support by a majority of democrats or republicans. We worked with him to try and find some way to address this in a compromise. They took the hard position of all or nothing. They wanted to eliminated or nothing. We said that we would prefer to leave it for the wto. We are appealing. There is a 5050 chance they will win. If we lose, that label will be gone. Tothey win, we will have address it. From a consumer standpoint, these people do not want to label something that is grown or processed in the United States. We have a United States label and they are fighting that we have no label whatsoever. Not support for that. We would have been happy to some way with them to solve the problem. It was very disappointing. After we had met their top priority, they decided to do what i thought was an incredible overreach. They were not successful. There was not support. Let me take you back to this question. We have been working on this for three years. It is my fourth farm bill. I did one in the house and three the senate. Austerity and of taking the time to read the bill, your legislation will get passed in three days. You will be the only person who read the whole thing. This, spent years doing it is two years overdue and it feels like such a huge part of the american economy. What are your impressions of the process . This is regular order. It took you three years. It did take three years. This time we passed it. The house did not take it up. They divided up and there were all kinds of things that went into it. I cannot control that. The reality is that the fundamental things in this bill are very close to a we passed in the senate. Our senators are very comfortable with this. The conversation conservation title is almost exactly the same. Crop insurance, we melded the commodity title as part of the house and part of the senate. This is very close to what we passed in the senate. People feel comfortable with it. Ami also stressed something that i think is important. Deficits, we are the only committee in a bipartisan basis that has kept our area of jurisdiction. Ever since we have had the ago,committee three years every committee was asked to come up with savings. Chairman lucas and i decided we would do that. That form the framework. We came up with 23 billion in savings. We stayed within the framework of what we came up with. Fell apart. Mittee we took that and we wrote a farm bill. We are at the end of the process where we are the only part of the federal government to produce savings in our own area of jurisdiction. We eliminated about 100 different programs or organizations that were duplicates or no longer made sense. Would challenge my colleagues if they did what we did we would have a balanced budget. Perspectivea innate because you are chairman of the committee. Majorwn state has a metropolitan area and smaller cities and vast rural areas. Listening to the state of the Union Address, would you are looking at Rural America or places outside the beltway, how do you see that playing with the general population . There is concern of democrats of keeping their majority. Willo you expect america respond to this message in the coming months . This is on point. Sinceality is today that the turnaround has begun, very few people are feeling the benefit of it. They have not had the opportunity to be able to work within the new economy. Most people are either holding on to stay in the middle class or they slid out of the middle class. They feel it is not fair that theyre not having an equal opportunity to move ahead like we have always seen. Classl not have a middle if the numbers continue that we see today. The 400 wealthiest families in our country have the same amount of money as 150 million americans. I do not begrudge people doing well and being wealthy. Were not going to have a middle class or an economy unless those hundred and 50 Million People have the same kind of fair shot to make it. Of them are enroll america. Many that are struggling to be able to make it, including farmers and are struggling to make it right now, the challenge of our time is to do Everything Possible to get people the opportunity to be in the middleclass and be successful and benefit from this strong economy. If you work 40 hours a week you will not be in poverty. We have time for one more question. Your colleagues met with treasury secretary. What did he tell you and what is the plan . Situation be in a where we will not be able to pay our bills. Shame on us if that is the case. We need to make sure that the bills will be paid. Everybody is responsible in their own family for doing that. We need to do that as a country. It is very simple. The constitution requires us to do it and we need to pay our bills. No negotiating . You dont negotiate paying the bills. Bills, comes to pay the it is our responsibility pay the bills. Not negotiate about paying the bills. Very quickly, back to the farm bill. For those who are not as involved in it as you, what is the tax cost to the american taxpayer. It is 900 billion. This includes help for needy families. They find themselves in a difficult position. Our seniors and people with disabilities. Our disabled veterans are coming home. Investment weest make in land and water conservation. There is support for agriculture in the form of help when there is a disaster or a loss. We have not really talked about jobs today, we have a new effort around biobased manufacturing. We are bringing manufacturing and farming together. We have all kinds of new opportunities to create bob jobs in this country. We have research and biobased manufacturing. These will grow the economy. Is 900 billion over five years . Over 10 years. How much is that saving . Is 23overall savings billion. That includes the sequestration cuts. We have artie put in place about 6 billion in sequestration already put in place about 6 billion in sequestration cuts. You take cuts in the size of the department . We have seen it research cut. Are close to being cut percentagewise than any other area of the government. I dont know the exact number. Are cut. E wise, we if you want to have a safe food supply, supporting our farmers is a very big part of that. E are very blessed 15 Million People work because of agriculture. It is the largest trade surplus that we have. E are feeding the world we are creating jobs or export. We want them to do well. If they do well, then america does well. We will be watching the senate this coming week as it takes up the farm bill. Senator debbie stepper the chair of the committee. Well be right back with our to reporters. We are back with our panel. What did you learn today . Is veryrned that she prepared to defend against any attacks of this bill. That is not a big surprise. She is been talking about this for three years. Republicans,with she may be defending some things there were not ideas of her own chamber. She seems to be doing an able job of that. Outchallenge is to pull her of the weeds because she has been living and breathing this. America wants to know about this bill. She has been talking to farmers and ranchers. She probably has better exposure and understanding of the troubles inside the Republican Party than most democrats. Deals with all sorts of issues that face the gop. You have spending, entitlement programs, really fundamental concerns of the Republican Party. She has had to live through it over the last few years. What the house did over the summer as they divided the farm bill for the first time in 30 , she had to stomach that and risk of this process collapse. She was able to find a way to work through it. If you talk to frank lucy lucas, they have a good understanding that if they kept their heads down that they understood what be might be coming their way. They had a good series of points to make with her colleagues. There are jobs attached to this. In this age where youre looking for this kind of thing, they had to get it done. You think about spending and job creation and productivity. To thea great witness problems of republicans. What is the relationship between her and congressman lucas . Bebers of congress can parochial at times. They both earned their seniority through a an important committee. Eve seen them both publicly they got along well. They understood they had to get this done. There were some conflicts on certain things. You probably have a better understanding than most people. They understood they had a job to do and had to find a way to balance farmers and the agriculture circle with the needs an