Congressman Boustany Hopes For Farm Bill Passage This Week

Congressman Charles Boustany visited 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today and discussed the Farm Bill, the NSA and IRS.  The Farm Bill is set for debate in the full House this week and Congressman Boustany said,

It came out of committee with a very strong vote and it's going to be seeing action on the House floor this week. There are some 80 to 100 amendments that will be discussed with the idea of having a final vote on Thursday afternoon.  That's a big step forward because if we can get that done and the Senate passes their bill.  The Senate will have a different bill and we'll hopefully go to conference and work out differences and get new five year legislation in place.  It's very important that we do this in a way that creates a fair system for our rice and soybean farmers and also the sugarcane industry.

According to Congressman Boustany,

This farm bill debate will be very heated.  There are those that want to completely wreck the sugar program.  There are those who are finding that $20 billion in spending reductions largely in the food stamp programs are not enough.  There are those who don't want any reductions in the food stamp program.

Congressman Boustany went on to say,

This is important to the US economy.  It's certainly important to the Louisiana economy to get certainty....so farmers can know the rules of the game.

In regards to turmoil surrounding the NSA Congressman Boustany said,

There's a lot of misinformation out there in the media.  This program has been carefully vetted.  Legislation has been changed to put in more safeguards over time.  Congress is very much involved in oversight as well as the FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which has to approve anything involved with American citizens...When we pick up information involving an American citizen or someone who is in America protected under the Constitution, then what happens is, the FISA court has to approve any other action on that.  If it's just dealing with foreign to foreign contacts we can track that and it's helped us uncover a number of major terrorists plots here and abroad.

Congressman Boustany had a lot more to say about the NSA scandal as well as the ongoing Congressional investigation of the IRS.  You can hear the entire interview here: