you know, in kentucky we have divided government as well. we have got a democratic-controlled house and the republican-controlled senate. but we know how to make democracy work here. have joinedars i with that democratic house and republican senate to balance our budgets and rein in spending. as a result, kentucky is among the nation's leaders in export growth and job creation. just this year we passed a budget and we will be moving veterinarybuild a center in hopkinsville, kentucky. [applause] we are building things like the west kentucky bridges. underds of other projects the agricultural development fund program. allocated we have

$400 million to more than 4800 projects designed to increase farm income and increase sustainable farm-based business enterprises. roger thomas and i worked with jack conway to settle a legal dispute. able -- wey, we were were able to restore funding cuts in the program and we will receive $57.2 million more in the next three years than we had budgeted. i am firmly committed to making sure that at least 50% of that money goes toward increasing that farm income. [applause] office continues to work alongside agricultural commissioner jamie coleman on the kentucky brown program. and i have partnered with

congressman rogers and state legislators to begin expanding access to high-speed broadband across the state. folks, long after the careers of politicians come and go, the needs of our families and our farmers endure. you know, down in eastern kentucky the congressman and i have been spearheading the shaping our appalachian region commission. we are working with the people and leaders of the region to diversify and remake the economy given the historic downturn in the coal industry. we are confident that we can be a catalyst for diversifying the appalachian coal-based economy. why? because you and i together have already performed such a transformative shift in agriculture. think back a minute. have almostucky

45,000 early tobacco farms. in 2012 we had about 4500. 1/10. in 1998 kentucky tobacco income topped $924 million. by 2012 that had dropped 60%. and yet during that same time, from farm income increased 4.2 billion dollars to over $5 billion. it is around $6 billion today just two years later. how did we do this? because we work together. we worked with the farm community to build partnerships and nurture grassroots support and focus on real issues and invest in a rural economy. we ignored differences and work together. are talking about appalachia, the kentucky farm community, or the state at large, folks, that is a winning

strategy for the future of this state. thank you very much. [applause] >> we are also pleased that senate republican leader mitch mcconnell could join us this morning. on november 15, 2006, he was unanimously selected republican leader and as such he is the highest-ranking leader in the u.s. senate and widely considered one of the most effective lawmakers in u.s. congress. he was instrumental in achieving passage of the tobacco buyout, winning the friend of farm bureau award during every session of congress since 1996. and the golden plow award of 2005. in 2002 he won the farm bureau's

distinguished service award following in the footsteps of senator john sherman cooper to become the second kentuckian to win the award. please welcome this morning senator mcconnell. [applause] >> good morning. morning. well, good morning, everyone. thank you, mark, for the great job that you do leading the farm bureau. it is great to be here every year and to see you all again. this morning i have some good news and some bad news. thatood news is i think the kentucky agricultural economy is doing rather well. prices for corn and soybeans are not going to be so good this under the new farm bill the crop insurance program,

i think, will help to sustain everyone during the process. of course, if you are in the livestock field you are pretty happy about the prices you are likely to be paying for feed. over the course of the years, as marquez indicated, i have been very involved in kentucky american agriculture. among the things i think i have made a difference, as you know the tobacco buyout, you know that we were losing the asset that had been created by the government in the 1930's, when they actually measured your production, assigned it to your land, and it was an asset that bleed your property values and it made a great living for a lot of people for a long time. ,ut given the health concerns it began to decline. we knew we were going to lose the asset entirely with no compensation. it was a pretty hard sell, i have to tell you, to colleagues

from nontobacco using states to come up with a program to compensate the holders for the quotas and other assets was a good idea. not an easy thing to achieve, but we did achieve it 10 years ago. this is about the last year of the buyout. the sequester sought to reduce it somewhat, but we managed to get it put back. indicate,tistics everybody has used those receipts for that asset that the government created, paid for by the users of the product, to move in a different direction or stay in tobacco production. discrimination against tobacco still remains. there was an effort to make tobacco farmers ineligible for crop insurance. it was a tough fight. we managed to defeat it thanks to the support of a lot of republican senators. the estate tax.

my single top priority over the americande for agriculture and particularly kentucky agriculture would be to get rid of the death tax altogether. [applause] i only saw it was the government's final outrage that you had to visit the irs and the undertaker on the same day. obviously our friends on the other side of the aisle really like the death. that think it is a great idea to confiscate your property at the end of your life and have the government redistribute it. fight. i was negotiating with the vice president two-year extension of the bush tax cuts in december of 2010. i said -- joe, the one thing that i want is at very least a

$5 million per person the state tax exemption index into permanent law. indexed into inflation. what i was hoping to get at some point was permanency. in 2010, butget it we did get an extension. as you all know, the good thing is you don't even have to die to take advantage of it. you can't use it twice, but if you want to begin to get your family farmed out of the next generation, you can. joe biden and i were back at the table on new year's eve of 2012. i preferred to be with you laying, but i found myself with joe biden once again. so, there we were, new year's eve, trying to hash out a fiscal cliff deal. what i wanted more than anything was permanency -- permanency for the $5 million exemption. indexed for inflation. why does permanent make a

difference? the law can be changed, but when it have an expiration date automatically goes away. permanence for the $5 million estate tax exemption. kentucky'save 99% of small businesses and family farms from having to be sold to pay the federal tax and i hope it makes a difference for kentucky agriculture. [applause] also, as we look for new directions for kentucky agriculture, senator paul and others began to discuss the possibility of a new crop, industrial hemp. an old crop, remember? akin the day of henry clay it was a big deal. the problem was, there was a good you look confusion between industrial hemp and some other

crop that was a bit more controversial and it took a bit of explaining. that was worked on in the general assembly and, ultimately, as a result of the commissioners work and others on a bipartisan basis, the state made it possible for us to try something new. but that was not enough. it was not enough. it had to be permitted at the federal level. had the same kind of challenge that you did in frankfurt of convincing my colleagues that this was something different from the other crop that first came to mind when you brought the subject up. what i did was talk to the conferees, the people that the leaders put on the bills to write the final bill, to talk to the conferees about my desire to have this end of course their desire to be on the conference report would help.

so, i found some new into z as him for something they had no interest in in the past. what we were able to achieve was the permission to have these projects that are now being grown at upa, murray, and western -- and we are hopeful, are we not, to have something here that will mean a lot to kentucky agriculture in the future? that is the good news. let me talk about the bad news. we are in the sixth year of the barack obama administration. at the rate we are going, he will double the national debt in eight years. we saw the one dollar trillion stimulus. we saw obamacare. you notice the governor doesn't use that word. he just doesn't want to say it and i don't blame them. deal, here'ss the the deal -- i have done 70 -- 70 hospital town hall meetings over

the last two years to ask the people directly involved in health care delivery how is it working out. here is what obamacare wants. $01 trillion hit on the providers of health care over the next decade. $700 billion in medicare reimbursement reductions -- hospitals, nursing homes, home health care hospice and the like, taxes on medical devices, taxes on health insurance premiums -- a one dollar chilean hit on the providers of health care to all the rest of us. now, what about all the rest of us? the consumers of health care? higher premiums. higher copayments. higher deductibles, lost jobs. it doesn't work for republicans or democrats. the former head of it, bill clinton staffer, told us that

obamacare would cost us 2.5 million jobs. it's a job killer. the medicaid expansion, apparently in kentucky the governor has the sole ability to expand medicaid. that is a decision to be made at the state level according to the supreme court. theuld only say this -- federal government only picks up 100% of this for three years. i worry about our state government and its ability to meet these commitments in the future. it is a big challenge. ofause medicaid is a program shared expense between the federal government and the states. bureaucracy, this administration has the most aggressive, adversarial bureaucracy in anybody's memory. they go into every workplace in

america with the view that if you are making a profit, you must the up to no good. you are obviously cheating your customers or mistreating your employees and they are here to help you. this is the principle reason, my friends, we have had such a tepid recovery after the deep recession of 2008. the government itself has slowed the growth of our country. that is the reason we have persistently high unemployment. the pattern of the past has been the deeper the recession, the quicker the bounce back. not this time. not this time. too much borrowing, spending, taxing, regulating. i will close with this -- you can tell by the president's approval rating that people have had it up to here with this crowd. you want to change directions, there is one thing that can be done. just one thing in 2014. to begin to take america in a different direction.

the thing that you can do in 2014 is to pick a new majority leader, a guy from kentucky, to begin to take america in a different direction. thank you very much. [applause] c-span, a look at how the health care law has been implemented in seven southern states. speakers include the former heritage foundation scholar from vox. that is live, tomorrow on c-span. >> this month, c-span presents debates on what makes america great.

evolution and genetically modified foods. on irsh spotlights oversight and campus sexual assault. new perspectives on issues, including global warming, voting rights, and food safety. and an art history tour showing sights and sounds from america's historic places. i'd are tv schedule one week in advance and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. us. us or e-mail join the conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> coming up, the house minority leader, nancy pelosi, and hoffman.a congressman followed by "newsmakers," with mike pence of indiana. and then tune in at 8:00 for a congressman with -- thunder

station with congressman charlie rangel. over the august recess, several members of congress participated in town hall meetings in their home state. nancy pelosi, the house minority huffman, spokeed at a recent forum that spoke largely on the issue of college affordability and other childhood education issues. this is one in a half hours. -- one and a half hours. [applause]

>> good afternoon. we are truly honored to be hosting today's town hall meeting with representative jared huffman along with democratic house leader, nancy pelosi. [applause] absolutely. joined today by our esteemed board of trustees, names]bevis -- [reads please give around the applause for the board of trustees. [applause] i also know that we are joined today by a variety of other leaders in education, both

superintendents and various school board members. if you are in the audience, please stand so that we can acknowledge you as well. thank you. [applause] tois now my pleasure introduce you to the moderator of our town hall meeting. dana king was a familiar face in the bay area for 15 years as a five-time emmy me -- emmy award-winning broadcast journalist on the cbs five eyewitness news. and she has a familiar face in the rain county, where she lived for 17 years before her recent move to oakland. she has spent years volunteering on behalf of children and youths, working to make early childhood education accessible to all students. here's she is the founding government leadership chair of marin kids, an organization dedicated to access forbidden -- dedicated to access for youth and a founder of the marin start strong coalition, which