Word: stockmans
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...farmers admit that they plunged too heavily into debt in the heyday of the 1970s, planting their fields from fence post to fence post. But they argue that that was precisely what federal bureaucrats and local bankers urged them to do. They reject the argument of Budget Director David Stockman that they are to blame for their troubles. "I'd like to get about 15 minutes behind the barn with that dude," says Tom Kersey, 45, a Georgia farmer who helped lead "tractorcade" protests to Washington...
...group look to Government to save them. "I kinda got to go along with David Stockman," said Mark Boege, 52, who grows walnuts and almonds. "I don't know why the Government has to bail us out. Besides, it seems like every time Government comes in, it makes things worse." Jim Vella, 51, an almond raiser whose wife, Clarice, 41, had to take a supermarket check-out job to help out, agreed. "Look at what Government did to those guys in the Midwest. They've been getting subsidies for years and they're in terrible shape." But what should...
...debate began last week with a verbal explosion touched off by--who else?--the Administration's self-appointed sayer-out-loud of the politically unthinkable: Budget Director David Stockman. At a Senate Budget Committee hearing, he was asked what relief the Administration was willing to extend to farmers who are unable to repay their loans. His reply: "For the life of me, I cannot figure out why the taxpayers of this country have the responsibility to go in and refinance bad debt that was willingly incurred by consenting adults who went out and bought farmland when the price was going...
That did it. "This Administration obviously doesn't give a cocklebur for rural America," stormed Democratic Senator James Exon of Nebraska. E. ("Kika") de la Garza, the Texas Democrat who heads the House Agriculture Committee, sneered that what Stockman was really saying was "Let's cut off the arms and legs of the patient. Then he'll be 30 lbs. lighter and less of a burden." Farm Belt Republicans were equally outraged. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, in a letter to Stockman, asked him to "please refrain from sermonizing on the free market, which seems most hypocritical from a Government...
...Administration failed to quell the uproar by announcing, the day after Stockman's testimony, a change in the rules under which it is offering $650 million in loan guarantees to banks that renew credit to debt-burdened farmers (the previous rules were so unattractive to rural bankers that they have accepted only $25 million in guarantees since the program began last September). Bipartisan groups of legislators, claiming that tens of thousands of farmers face bankruptcy before they can get their crops planted this spring, readied bills to force a vastly greater expansion of loan guarantees. One measure being drafted...