Speeches

When we talk of PILT funding, we should never lose sight of the fact that it is a very, very poor substitute for revenues generated locally by healthy economic activity and federal revenue sharing. Our ultimate objective should be not to institutionalize PILT, but to restore active management of our federal lands and a healthy balance between federal land ownership and productive private ownership of the lands within each county in the nation.

I was deeply saddened to learn that the Ferguson Fire has taken the life of yet another firefighter, Capt. Brian Hughes of Squaw Valley, on Sunday and that bulldozer operator Don Ray Smith of Pollock Pines died Thursday while fighting the Carr fire. Their deaths remind us how much we owe every one of the thousands of dedicated men and women who stand between these fires and our homes and families. They know the dangers better than any, yet day after day and year after year take the front lines to stop these monster fires.

My amendment takes all the policy reforms in the budget resolution and writes those savings into the reconciliation instructions. This does not change a single recommendation that we have been debating. It simply implements them – about $3.55 trillion over ten years after removing interest payments and non-reconcilable items under the Byrd Rule.

Farm subsidies – essentially taking money from taxpayers to inflate the price of their groceries – was never a good idea. They are the poster children of corporate welfare. After all, the vast proportion of them go to large corporations – not small family farms.