mr. yoder: senator bob dole has spent his life in service to the american people as a soldier, he served as a member of this house, senate, and ran for president. we in kansas are so very proud of senator dole's legacy as our native son. 10 years ago the university of kansas, my alma mater, completed construction and opened to the public the robert j. dole institute of politics on k.u.'s beautiful west campus. its official mission is promote political and civil participation, as well as civil discourse in a bipartisan balanced manner, end quote. this is precisely what senator dole stood for in his career and what his legacy, the dole institute, promotes today. we all congratulate the university of kansas on the 10-year niff of the dole institute and congratulate and continue our appreciation for senator dole and all the work he does for his state of kansas and his country. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlelady from tenne

chairman and thank you, to my colleague, mr. yoder. the farm bill historically has been looked at as a safety net to both farmers and for farming and for nutrition and quite honestly that this was really the renting of that historic bipartisan safety net and i'll tell you why in this regard. you see, the farming and ranching community was in the farm bill. when you had talked about the cut in direct payments, then what occurred was an increase in crop insurance opportunities and then, secondly, there was instituted something called shallow loss protection to deal with commodities. now -- so there are places in the farm bill where farmers, ranchers can go to make sure that the safety net isn't rented, with regard to the food stamp beneficiary. they have nowhere else to go. nowhere else to go. when you cut 1.7 million people and you say we're going to cut your food stamp benefit by $90 a month, they can't deal with shallow loss. they're not dealing with crop insurance. so this was a false construct in this farm bill. let me just ask and