Sen. Tester on Tariffs: We Depend on Other Countries to Have Reasonable Markets and Not Go Broke

RUSH EXCERPT:
TESTER: "Well, I think it starts with his tariffs. I mean, you know, people in production, agriculture raise more food than we can eat in this country. So we depend upon foreign countries to have reasonable markets so that we don’t go broke because our markets are not paying us the cost of production. That’s where government subsidies come in because of these tariffs, because they’ve pumped a bunch of money into the farm bill for subsidies. It shows me that they’re not going to do anything to do things like make these tariffs work for people in production. Ag and by the way, folks in production ag are the tip of the spear when it comes to trade wars. We’re the ones that end up on the short end of the stick, and they’re not going to do anything to put more competition in the marketplace. Which, by the way, when capitalism works, you get fair prices for your products. And it’s good for consumers too, I might add. But what they’re going to do is they’re going to make us dependent upon the federal government with more subsidies. There’s not a farmer that I know that doesn’t want to get their paycheck from the marketplace and to say, no, we’re going to we’re going to turn this into a socialist system. So you have to depend on me, uncle Sam, to make a living on your farm. Just goes against everything that my parents taught me when I was growing up about production, agriculture and. And the bottom line is they need to take that bill back. They need to take the whole bill back and rework it, because it’s really bad and a whole bunch of areas. But the farm bill, part of that bill that was passed by the house a week or so ago, absolutely does not meet the food security needs or the needs of people in production, agriculture in this country. And it certainly doesn’t meet the needs of our taxpayers. It’s going to increase our debt even more, which is something that we should be taken seriously. And this bill does not."